


Sweet, Delicious Despair

by Marchling



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Anal Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Poor Ianto, Possession, Rimming, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 07:16:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11709516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marchling/pseuds/Marchling
Summary: A group of strange suicides comes Torchwood's way when the police can't figure out why happy people with everything to live for are suddenly taking their own lives for seemingly no reason. The team is on the case, but there are no leads… Until one of their own is threatened.(Note: Previously posted in 2012 on ff.net - Part of my incredibly slow transfer of stories onto AO3)





	1. In My Veins

**Author's Note:**

> 1: This story is set in mid season two (ish) and has established Jack/Ianto
> 
> 2: This story is complete and other than some quick polishing I'm going to post it pretty quickly. I wrote it years ago but I'm really really bad at getting all my stories on AO3. So if the summary sounds familiar, that's why!
> 
> 3: PLEASE READ: This story features a LOT of discussion of suicide. If this is a trigger for you, please err on the side of caution. If you'd like to message me to ask a more in-depth question about the suicide themes in the story, please feel free.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

 

 

“Definitely self-inflicted.” Owen reported, dropping in late on the debriefing. He was still in his lab coat, his face grim after having done a third autopsy on a suicide victim who had, near as anyone could tell, everything to live for. Just the day before she had been a happy woman, in love and thriving. All the others were the same: regular, happy people with no history or signs of depression.

The case probably wouldn’t have even come to them had the police not found the first suicide odd, and the man’s family desperate for an investigation on what they were sure was a clever murder. Even then, they might not have deemed it Torchwood material if they hadn’t gotten footage of the second suicide, a perky young mother, picking up her mother’s pain medication that she would use to kill herself with roughly an hour later, talking about her daughter’s progress in piano lessons and the trip they were about to take as a family. She’d been animated, open and _alive_. There was no hint of suffering on her face, no hint of what was to come. Even if she’d been the world’s greatest actress it would have been suspicious.

And so the police had contacted them, finally at a complete loss. Three suicides in two weeks, all strange and unexpected, all weird… and thus, all Torchwood’s.

“You can tell that for sure?” Gwen asked, taking a bite of her lunch with nary a grimace. The things they talked about over pizza…

“It’s got a lot to do with the angles.” Jack answered and Owen nodded.

Tosh looked between them, “So, we’re certain she killed herself. The police are positive this woman is connected? No chance she actually did this herself?”

Ianto read from the report, “She just finished the degree she’d been working on since before their wedding. She was up for a promotion at work. She and her husband made the decision to go off birth control two days ago.”

Gwen winced. “All right, they’re connected.”

“Unless she had the same feelings on the prospect of motherhood as I do for fatherhood, then I’d say so.” Owen concluded, shedding the lab coat as though to physically shake off the depressing task he’d just completed.

Ianto glanced at the police report again, “She worked in a day care.”

Owen took a second from shoving his face full of pizza to send a half-hearted glare Ianto’s way.

“All right,” Jack said, bringing the attention back to him. “I want Tosh and Ianto to go through the archives, see if you can come up with anything that seems relevant or could have caused this. Gwen, go over their lives with a fine tooth comb, see where they intersect. Owen, after lunch you’re coming with me, we’re going to head over to her flat and see if we can’t find leads there.” He received nods all around, until he got to Owen.

“Not if you want that autopsy report typed up for the police.” Owen said, “I haven’t even gotten a chance to finish up the last one.”

Jack sighed, paperwork often his last priority. “All right, Tosh, get started on the archives yourself. Ianto, you’re with me.”

Gwen hesitantly darted her eyes between Jack and Ianto. “Perhaps you’d like me along, Jack? If her husband is there…”

“He won’t be. The police said he packed a bag to stay with his parents. He doesn’t want to be at the flat.” Jack answered, not unkindly. “Ianto and I won’t be stuck comforting grieving husbands.”

The look on Jack’s face spoke volumes on just how glad he was for that.

 

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

 

Luckily for secretive Torchwood, the press had mostly cleared out by the time Jack and Ianto arrived at Bethan Astley’s flat. That had turned out to be the only thing that went their way for the rest of the day.

Their information about her husband’s desire to be anywhere aside from the home that he’d shared with his wife was true but the timing wasn’t. He was still in the flat when they arrived and they’d crossed paths through the door. The man was pale and shaking but not crying. He seemed like he’d had the life drained out of him nearly as successfully as his wife. He’d stumbled ever so slightly on the way out the door and Ianto had carefully caught his elbow before letting to quickly. He wasn’t sure what integrity mattered in the wake of what had happened to him but he was going to allow the man to keep as much of it as possible. Still, Bethan’s husband barely seemed to notice Ianto and Jack existed, let alone that Ianto had helped him.

The entire trip turned out to be a bust, even if they hadn’t seen Bethan’s husband. There wasn’t anything strange or out of place about her flat, aside from the bloodstained carpet. Everything in the place spoke to the accounts of Bethan as a happy woman and nothing turned up as odd or off.

At the Hub, Tosh was still working her way through the archives, something that Ianto was a big deal of help with when they got back. Gwen hadn’t turned up any connections between the three victims yet and it didn’t look like there were many to be found.

At least Owen had finished his autopsy reports.

“This is madness, Jack.” Gwen said, dropping her hands from the keyboard during the third hour of extensive, probably invasive, research. “All three went to see the same movie over a one month span at two different cinemas. That’s about it.”

Owen leaned over her shoulder, “Iron Man? God, it’s not even a depressing movie.”

“That’s rather the point.” Ianto said from his spot at Tosh’s desk, materials from the archives spread between them.

Gwen snorted, her earlier frustration momentarily forgotten.

“Quiet, Teaboy.” Owen retorted.

Jack nodded, although he looked like was trying not to laugh at Ianto’s deadpanned point. “We’re not going to get anything else done tonight,” He said, glancing at his wristband. “Head home, we’ll start again no later than 8:30 tomorrow morning.”

“Better than nothing, I suppose.” Owen grumbled, wasting no time gathering his coat and keys. “Night, kids.”

Tosh and Gwen were slightly more reluctant to clear out, especially Gwen who had been going over the credit card statements for romantic dinners and tracking the second victim’s children’s movements in her search for a connection. Jack wouldn’t be swayed though, practically forcing her out the blast door with broad hints about savoring one’s relationships while there was time.

“Bit heavy handed a message.” Ianto said from behind Jack as they watched Gwen leave via the Tourist Office door.

“What, that Rhys might off himself if she didn’t visit him regularly?” Jack asked, eyes on the monitor. “Sure, but it worked.”

Ianto grinned as Jack turned to face him, “One cannot argue with the results, sir.”

“Did we not just watch Gwen leave? I don’t see your boss anywhere around here.” Jack said, making a show of looking around the empty Hub.

“I don’t know,” Ianto said, glancing with Jack, “Am I to be thrown out as well, _Jack_?”

Jack slid his hand around Ianto’s back, pulling the younger man to press against his body. “You were biting your lip for a full twenty minutes towards the end there. I could hardly stand it. Good thing no one looked my way.”

“And here I thought you were one of the strongest proponents for an office-wide orgy.” Ianto said, leaning into Jack. He had thoughts about nipping Jack’s bottom lip, but sometimes the banter was half the fun and an action like that would put an end to any talk that required full sentences.

Jack grinned, “Normally, of course.” He freely admitted and Ianto wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. “But with you in my favorite suit-”

“You have a favorite?”

“Of course… and biting your lip like that, so focused-”

“I’m glad one of us was.” Ianto teased.

“Mmm…” Jack agreed, “Can I be blamed for wanting you all to myself?”

Ianto pretended to consider it, purposefully ignoring the hand that slid down his back to somewhere decidedly less conducive to conversation. “You’re lucky Tosh’s eyes were glazing over. Otherwise I’d accuse you of leading with your other brain.”

That, they both knew, wasn’t true at all. Jack wouldn’t have sent them home just for a little naked hide and seek with Ianto. It was just excellent timing.

Ianto stepped around Jack, making sure they were pressed together as much as possible, his body sliding against Jack’s as he went. “Shall we take this to your quarter’s, Captain Harkness?”

“I love the way you think.” Jack said, grinning when Ianto did.

He really did love the way Ianto thought, the way that Ianto laughed as Jack chased him down the hall, the way that he looked in that suit and the way he felt against Jack…

So that was probably why he was so completely shocked when, three hours after they’d fallen asleep together, sleepy, sated and happy, Jack was pulling Ianto’s syringe-holding hand from where he’d been about to inject one of Owen’s strongest alien poisons into his own arm.


	2. A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

 

Jack’s eyes opened slowly and he ran his hand along the bed, as if there was enough room on his cramped bed for Ianto to have simply rolled away from him in the night. They always slept pressed against each other when they stayed in Jack’s quarters and Jack very much preferred it that way. 

There was obviously no Ianto in bed with him and Jack turned to stare at the clock, watching the numbers go by while he blinked tiredly, waiting for Ianto to get back from the loo. That, Jack was certain, was the only place that Ianto would have been able to get up the will to crawl out of bed for, if he was even half as tired as Jack was. If he wasn’t at least half as tired as Jack was, then the immortal was losing his touch in a truly alarming way.

Ten minutes passed though, and Ianto still hadn’t returned. Something his Jack’s gut twisted, urging him out of bed. Ianto wouldn’t just leave in the middle of the night with no word and no bathroom visit took that long.

He didn’t bother putting clothes on as he crawled through the hatch in the floor, calling Ianto’s name as he went, “Yan! Get that hot arse of yours back down here!”

The order, which usually earned Jack a playful smack on his own backside, was met with nothing but silence - a pretty good feat in the usually echoing Hub. Jack strained his ears, listening for Ianto’s footsteps or his answer but he didn’t hear a thing. He climbed the rest of the way out of the hatch and went silently down the hall, trying to pick up a noise.

Finally, he could hear faint movements down in Owen’s medbay. “Ianto?” He called again.

Still, no answer. If Jack could hear Ianto puttering around in Owen’s supplies, then he should have heard Jack calling. Jack moved quicker passed the empty desks, “Ianto? Answer me.”

He got to the railings of medbay and looked down at Ianto. At first, his mind didn’t register what he was seeing. It took only a few seconds, though, for Jack’s eyes to take in the tourniquet, the syringe and Ianto.

He was down the steps before his mind fully comprehended the magnitude of what he was seeing. “ _Ianto_! Stop!”

The end of the needle was less than a centimeter from Ianto’s pale skin when Jack wrenched it away, throwing it across the room and pulling Ianto to face him. He ripped the tourniquet from Ianto’s arm.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jack shouted, hands on Ianto’s shoulders. Ianto didn’t answer and Jack shook him.

That seemed to do something, finally. Ianto started with a jerk and looked around, as though he didn’t recognize where he was. Jack’s heart was racing and Ianto didn’t even seem aware of what he’d been about to throw away. “What the hell were you doing?” He asked again, practically shouting it in Ianto’s face.

“I… I was sleeping. When did we come up here?” Ianto said, still looking around.

Jack used both of his hands to turn Ianto’s head towards him. He stared into his lover’s eyes, desperate to know what was happening. “What’s wrong, Ianto?” He asked, more gently this time.

“Nothing, Jack.” Ianto insisted, although he looked more than a little frightened at waking up where he hadn’t fallen asleep. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

Jack’s eyes took in Ianto’s open expression, the honesty in his eyes, the genuine confusion… “Oh god,”

The horror in his voice was obvious to Ianto, no matter how confused he was. “What? Jack, why are we out here…” He shivered, suddenly aware that they both weren’t wearing a thing. “Naked?”

Jack swallowed heavily, trying to get his emotions under control and to focus on Ianto as the leader of Torchwood. “How do you feel, Ianto?”

“Fine, cold,” Ianto said, seeing how serious Jack was. “Confused.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Jack asked.

Ianto shrugged, “Falling asleep in your bed.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed, trying to find the slightest thing that would help the situation, as if there was something that could make finding his lover about to kill himself (because there was no doubt in his mind that when he got Owen into the Hub they were going to find out that the syringe had contained a lethal dose of _something_ ) less of a fucked-up mess. “You don’t remember waking up?”

“Not until you shook me.” Ianto answered, his breathing hitching as his head started to catch up. “Jack, did you pull a tourniquet off my arm?”

“Come on,” Jack said, ignoring the question. He pulled Ianto out of Owen’s domain. “We’re going to get dressed, we’re going to call the others in and Owen is going to look you over. Okay?”

“Jack,” Ianto said, biting his lip and stopping, forcing Jack to stop with him. He couldn’t seem to say anything else.

Jack wrapped his arms around Ianto, stalling his plan for a long moment. “We’re going to figure this out.” He said, pulling back. “Stick close to me, okay?”

Ianto, his brilliant Ianto, didn’t need the dots connected for him. He nodded and visibly tried to push the shakiness away. He mostly succeeded, and Jack respected him all the more.

 

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

 

Owen made it to the hub first, Jack’s hushed and rushed explanation spurring the doctor in him faster than anything else could. “Right mate,” He said to Ianto before his jacket was even off, “Let’s go run some scans.”

Ianto made as if to stand, but Jack held him back, “There’s a broken syringe on the floor down there, I’d like to get a sample analysis started first.”

Owen watched Jack carefully. It was obvious to him how genuinely freaked out Ianto was, even if he was hiding it relatively well. They were both freaked out, really, hell even he was, but he could see the wisdom of being sure of what they were dealing with. Besides, he and Jack both knew it wouldn’t take long to get a sample of the liquid from the syringe into the computers for a run through.

With his head already spinning with possible tests to run, Owen left Jack and Ianto to their own devices. Ianto watched him go, glad that he hadn’t made a huge deal out of what was going on… not that Owen’s attitude would be the norm. Really, his gratitude was going to be pretty short lived. “Gwen is going to spew compassion all over me.”

“That’s kind of her thing, but you know she means well.” Jack defended lightly. “Still, I’ll talk to her. _You’re_ not the one that wants to kill yourself.”

The words were confident, but the tone behind them wasn’t. Ianto stood up and walked so he could rest against Jack’s back, his arms around the other man. “No, I don’t want to kill myself.” He answered, trying to make it sound as certain as he could. He _was_ certain. Maybe in the time after Lisa’s death it had been less so but Jack and the work at Torchwood had given him meaning again. It made all those doubtful little thoughts go away.

Now, he had no idea what was happening to him. Jack had found him with a syringe in his hand, ready to inject _something_ , but he had no memory of that. He had never sleepwalked in his life. Horrible ideas were swimming through his head… mind control, possession, something that had altered his very brain, his being…

His skin almost felt like it itched _inside_. He wasn’t alone, in some way or another. All he wanted was to give whatever was happening a name, to make it separate from himself. _He_ did not want to die. _He_ hadn’t left Jack’s bed to load up a syringe. _He_ hadn’t tied the tourniquet.

“All right,” Owen called, breaking Ianto out of his increasingly desperate musings, “Sample’s cooking. I’m ready for you Ianto.”

Ianto sighed and moved away from Jack, determined to keep it together as best he could. He had to hold onto the fact that _it was not him_. “Normally I like knowing you’re watching me walk away, this is decidedly less sexy though.” He said, without glancing back at the other man, though he felt Jack’s eyes on him all the same.

Jack laughed, really laughed, pleased at the joke. Still, he did watch Ianto walk towards Owen and didn’t turn until he heard the two of them talking.

 

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

 

“I still can’t believe it.” Tosh said, glancing over at Jack. He’d explained on the phone but she had almost been sure that she was hearing the situation wrong. There was no way that Ianto had tried to kill himself.

“Neither can I.” Gwen agreed, sharing a look with Tosh.

Jack stood between them, arms crossed over his chest. Tosh could hardly imagine what he was thinking. What if he’d of drifted off asleep again, sure that Ianto was in the bathroom and would be back soon? What if he hadn’t heard Ianto in Owen’s supplies and had searched the Hub for him? The thoughts were haunting enough to Tosh, she couldn’t imagine what they were doing to Jack.

“At least we’ve now got knowledge that we didn’t have before.” Jack said, “Ianto doesn’t feel any different than he did yesterday. He doesn’t have any suicidal thoughts and he was completely confused when I grabbed him before he… in medbay.”

Gwen looked up at him, “Are we sure about that? Ianto’s not a particularly open guy when it comes to his feelings.”

It wasn’t quite a glare that Jack leveled on Gwen, but it still wasn’t a friendly look. “Aside from the fact that he knows the stakes here, I would think that you’d assume Ianto is different ‘at home’ as it were, as opposed to when we’re working.”

Tosh tried to mediate, “Gwen knows that. We just have to be sure. Whatever this is almost made him kill himself, we can’t be sure that it hasn’t affected his behavior in other ways.”

Jack dragged a hand down his face, suddenly looking more tired than Tosh had seen him look in quite a while. “I know.” He sighed, “We’re going to make sure that he’s never alone, even though this seems to be connected to sleeping. The last thing that Ianto remembers is falling asleep. The first and third victim killed themselves early morning, which ties to natural sleep.”

“And the second?” Gwen asked.

“A nap maybe?” Tosh supplied, looking between the two. “It’s possible.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” Jack agreed. “Still, until we get some results from Owen, we’re not going to be sure.”

All three of them turned when Owen spoke behind them. “Well, then you’ll be glad to know that I don’t sense anything different out of Ianto than normal scans show. Blood work reads the same, brain activity, the whole deal.”

Ianto stood next to Owen, clearly not enjoying being the center of attention. “Coffee?” He offered, already moving.

“Stop.” Jack said, and Ianto obeyed. He turned back to Owen. “So you think this is connected to sleep also?”

Owen glanced at Ianto. “I don’t want to put Ianto’s life on it, but yes, I think whatever this is has been hijacking these people when their mental facilities have been at their weakest… when they’re sleeping. Still, I don’t see anything wrong with letting him out of our sight, so long as it’s not for more than ten minutes or so.”

Ianto looked relieved. He moved towards the coffee machine without another word. Obviously he’d be aware that they were talking about him, but at least across the room it wasn’t so awkward.

Tosh felt awful for him. Ianto seemed to thrive on being the background support, there when one of them needed him most and off to himself when he could be. That would be gone if they needed to stay close to him all the time.

“Gwen, clearly this thing is hopping between people at random, possibly with proximity. I would assume that when we were at Bethan Astley’s apartment it leapt into him. That’s another lead, but there’s no point in trying to find a connection between them. Apparently, all it takes is just passing in the street. Help Tosh as much as you can.” Jack ordered and Gwen nodded, biting her lip as she, like all the others, kept glancing Ianto’s way.

“Tosh, have you found anything?” Jack asked.

She wished she had a little something more to share. “I’ve got a few possibilities but those are from last night. I’ll need to check them over again with this new information.”

Jack nodded, “Do that.” He paused for a long second before turning to Owen. “Did you find out what was in the syringe?”

Owen’s expression, grim before, went even darker. “Remember that smelly bastard we bagged a few weeks ago?” He asked, taking in the unconscious nose-crinkling they all did. “Right… it was my sample of his venom.”

Tosh thought back to what Owen had originally said about the venom. “You said when it mixed with living tissue it became like battery acid.” She said, faintly.

“Yeah.” Owen agreed.

Gwen spoke from behind the hand covering her mouth. “And Ianto was going to inject it into his veins? Oh…”

Jack clenched his eyes shut for a moment. “Not Ianto.” He ground out, like the words were being forced through his lips. “Ianto wasn’t the one doing it. We can’t forget that.”

“No, of course not.” Tosh agreed quickly.

“Still, you do realize what this means, right?” Owen said, watching Jack carefully. The immortal opened his eyes and they could all sense the resignation there.

“It’s using Ianto’s knowledge of the Hub to choose it’s… method. It knew about Bethan’s husband’s gun. It knew the effects of Evelyn Lloyd’s mother’s pills and it knew about Dylan Adams’ allergy.” Owen continued, no matter how awful Gwen and Tosh’s expression got.

Conversation stopped. How could it not when all four of them were left to think of all of the creative, exotic and brutal ways that a person could kill themselves with all of the options collected in the Hub?

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-


	3. The Name of Inevitability

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

 

Despite the horrifying implications of Owen’s report and Jack’s quiet discussion with Ianto about staying out of the archives until things were sorted out, the afternoon was not nearly as terrible as the morning had started out. For the morning, at least, sleep wasn’t yet an issue.

Still, it loomed over their heads.  

The research continued, with every person sorting through endless species and artifacts that might have anything to do with what was happening. They’d already eliminated any sort of ghostly reenactment scenario, the circumstances were too differing, and were focusing their efforts on creatures that liked to toy with emotions and the possibility that there was some sort of master plan to what was happening.

It wasn’t until well after dinner that Jack broke the status quo that was helping them cope.

“Let’s start breaking this down into shifts. You three keep working,” Jack said, nodding to Owen, Tosh and Gwen, “And Ianto and I will take a break.”

“Is this your tactful way of saying that I get to sleep while you watch me and they keep an eye on all controlled substances?” Ianto asked mildly, as if they weren’t discussing the probability of his attempted suicide.

It was, and they all knew that, but Jack couldn’t stand the way Ianto made it sound.  “Maybe,” He answered, pulling on Ianto’s arm to make him stand, “But don’t come running unless you hear us shouting _your_ names, all right?” He said, winking at the three left behind.

“Don’t put us through more trauma.” Owen grumbled, purposefully pulling a new file open so he could ignore Tosh and Gwen’s shared giggle.

 

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

 

Jack merely stood and watched while Ianto stripped down and pulled back the covers to his bed. Normally, he’d do it with a leer, a wink and a suggestion. Tonight, he just watched.

“No Jack, that’s not unnerving at all.” Ianto said as he settled himself on the bed.

Jack smiled, “I spend half my time sneaking a peek at your… _assets_. Never bothered you before.”

Ianto rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t. If it did there was absolutely no way this could work out.” He said, meaning their relationship, however odd it was. That was probably the truth too.

“So, then what’s unnerving?” Jack said, dimming the lights for Ianto.

“Can you at least pretend this is a normal night and you’re going to sleep with me?” Ianto asked, his voice breaking ever so slightly. He’d been so remarkably calm about the whole thing, as if some alien wasn’t trying to make him kill himself for reasons that they hadn’t yet figured out, that Jack almost thought that Ianto’s initial concern was just from being surprised about the situation. Clearly, he was more affected than Jack had realized, but then, he was somehow always more affected than Jack thought while simultaneously being less freaked out than Jack ever guessed. Essentially, everything Jack guessed about Ianto was only half-right. It was infuriating and wonderful, all at the same time.

He didn’t think that more jokes would be welcome and he didn’t even want to make them. He just wanted Ianto to be able to sleep and he wanted to figure out how to kill whatever it was that was threatening them. He pulled his braces down his shoulders and kicked his shoes off before sliding into the bed next to Ianto. “We don’t do normal.” He pointed out, propping himself half-over Ianto with one arm and running his other hand down the younger man’s cheek.

“We also don’t do suicide, but…” Ianto said with a humorless chuckle.

Jack leaned in and kissed him, to keep more words like that from coming out of his mouth. “Nobody is doing anything with suicide.” He said firmly, even though he was only whispering.

Ianto opened his mouth, probably to protest, but Jack just kissed him again. It was honestly one of the best ways to end an argument that he’d found in his long life and it was always a welcome option with Ianto.

“Sleep.” He said. “I’ll be here.”

Ianto watched him a long moment, but he didn’t protest that time. He just closed his eyes with a tired sigh and probably pretended not to feel Jack’s stare on him while he fell asleep.

Jack, for various reasons not limited to training and physiology, didn’t need nearly as much sleep as the average person. In the beginning with Ianto, whenever Ianto fell asleep and Jack didn’t, he would get up and work on the endless stream of paperwork or go fool around in the Hub or with other people. As they moved from ‘dabbling’ (Ianto’s term) to whatever they were, Jack stayed more and more. Sometimes he still left to do the paperwork but the Hub wasn’t nearly as interesting as Ianto while he slept and other people weren’t nearly as fun when Jack ended up feeling disloyal afterwards. Ianto didn’t ask Jack for anything other than honesty but somehow that meant he got everything else.

Watching Ianto sleep wasn’t anything different, even if he normally went about it in a less _unnerving_ way.

He knew all of Ianto’s little sleep habits. He knew how he looked during a good dream, during a _good_ dream and during nightmares. He was even getting pretty good at telling which of Ianto’s normal nightmares he was having (Lisa, Jack’s deaths, Canary Wharf…). He also knew when Ianto was about to wake up.

None of those signs, not the shifting or the sighs, appeared, but Ianto’s eyes snapped open anyway.

“Hey,” Jack greeted quietly, a little startled. “Bad dream?” He asked, concerned.

Ianto didn’t answer, didn’t look at Jack and instantly, Jack was on guard. “Ianto?” He asked, shifting in the bed. He slung a leg over Ianto’s midsection and sat up to straddle him, effectively keeping him from being able to move. Ianto tried to get up but he didn’t really fight Jack. “Look at me.” Jack ordered, trying to sound harsh towards the person he felt least willing to shout at.

Whatever was in Ianto did look at him but it was barely more than a glance. It looked away, as though Jack was beneath its notice.

Jack grabbed Ianto’s chin and lifted it, forcing whatever was hijacking his lover’s body to look at him. “You listen to me,” He ground out, “I don’t know what you are, but I will and I’ll know it soon. I’ll tell you who I am, though. I’m a Time Agent, a conman, an immortal from the 51st century, I was a companion to a Time Lord and as a member of Torchwood I’ve killed more aliens than you’ve likely ever heard of.”

Ianto, or really, the thing _in_ Ianto held his gaze steadily. It didn’t react to his words, but Jack got the sense that it was listening. If it didn’t understand him, it wouldn’t be meeting his eyes like it was.

He didn’t bother pausing to let it speak. It wasn’t going to, that much was obvious. “I don’t know why you’re doing this but I know what you’re trying to do to him. You’ve got two choices, leave now peacefully or keep trying to kill him and I’ll make it my mission to hunt you down and kill you slowly.” Jack vowed. As the leader of Torchwood it went against what he preached. They didn’t kill needlessly. They didn’t kill if they could contain. This, no matter how much Jack tried to keep it separate, was personal in ways that Jack didn’t care to put words to.

He wasn’t threatening, _promising_ , as the leader of Torchwood. He was vowing slow retribution as a desperate man determined to either save his lover or avenge him.

It was simple, it was powerful and, more importantly, it was universal.

For a long moment, neither one of them moved. Jack’s jaw clenched as he stared down at an alien with his lover’s face, practically vibrating in anger. The alien held his eyes for only seconds before Ianto’s eyes closed. Ianto’s breathing evened out again, as though sleeping.

Jack didn’t move from where he was pinning Ianto to the bed for the least sexy reason he’d ever done it. He waited and the minutes passed and he waited more.

He’d been hoping for something, a mist leaving Ianto’s mouth, a flash of light, a shifting image, _anything_ , to indicate that it didn’t intend to follow through with what it had done to the others.

Nothing happened.

Jack kept waiting, though, for a long hour that seemed like a year. He would have kept waiting too, if Ianto hadn’t woken up on his own, eyebrow raised and bemused smile on his lips. Beneath that, though, Jack could see the realization of why Jack was guarding him so.

“Nothing happened.” Jack told him quietly.

It didn’t seem to reassure Ianto. “Obviously I didn’t get far.”

“ _It_ didn’t get far, no. I’ve made our thoughts on its goal pretty clear.”Jack answered. “I won’t let it do anything to you.” He said from his spot above Ianto. He leaned down and kissed Ianto hard, sealing his words like a promise to both beings in Ianto’s body.

 

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

 

Both Jack and Ianto took only minutes to get dressed. The second attempt to hijack Ianto’s body made them both eager to get to the research.

“Any luck?” Jack called as he and Ianto walked into the main area. Gwen was sleeping on the couch and Owen and Tosh were reading over the same file, sitting close together. Normally, Jack would make some sort of joke about it but the looks on their faces when they looked up kept it back.

Owen looked grim, “Ianto, be a love and get the coffee flowing, yeah? We’ll wake Gwen up and getting started in the conference room.”

Ianto didn’t move, “Did you find something?” He asked.

Owen nodded, “We’ll talk it all out.” He promised before turning his back to Ianto and moving to the couch to nudge Gwen awake. Tosh just stared at the two of them, her face worried and sad, even more so than when they hadn’t found anything at all. Now, it was obvious that whatever they had found hadn’t helped any and Jack knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to save Ianto. Easy didn’t really matter to him, though, just so long as it was possible.

Suddenly moving, Ianto retreated to the coffee machine and started getting another dose of their addiction flowing.

Jack watch him for a moment but he couldn’t help but move closer to Tosh while Owen and Gwen started to head up to the conference room. Really, anything to keep Gwen from catching his eye… he could feel her worried compassion from across the room.

“When did you find this?” Jack asked, nodding to the file in her lap.

“Maybe an hour ago, that’s when Gwen decided to catch some sleep.” Tosh answered, standing up and rolling her neck to work out the kinks.

Jack tried to mask how annoyed he was. “And you didn’t wake us up because?”

Tosh looked startled, “You and Ianto needed the rest. Besides, Owen and I were hoping we could work something out before you woke up.”

Jack let a tense breath out and glanced behind himself to watch Ianto for a second. The younger man didn’t look his way but that was probably for the best. “I’m sorry, Toshiko. I know you’re trying to help.”

There wasn’t really a whole lot she could say to that, clearly. Instead, Tosh just patted Jack’s arm and grabbed the files from her desk before heading up to the office.

 

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

 

 “Apparently Torchwood has come into contact with this thing twice before. We found records from a two month span in 1939 that Torchwood investigated while Jack was in World War II. Nine suicides, all younger to middle-aged vibrant people with everything to live for… outside of the whole global war thing.” Owen explained, dumping the yellowed files on the table.

“It took Torchwood slightly longer to step onto the case.” Tosh explained, glancing over at Jack.

Jack smiled grimly, “Little more to die over, then.” He said, voice nostalgic and bitter. “Still, nine random suicides should have rung a bell.”

“They were investigating by the seventh.” Tosh answered, “They figured out the pattern, cause and how to deal with the alien between the seventh and ninth suicide.”

Ianto straightened up when Tosh mentioned the alien directly. “Do we have a species name? Planet of origin?” He asked. Somehow, having a name for the enemy, so that the being trying to kill him could finally be separate from him, seemed important.

“If it communicates with other beings, Torchwood couldn’t figure out how. So they were calling it Sui Caedere.” Gwen answered, clearly trying to give Ianto what they could all see he plainly needed.

“It’s Latin…” Tosh started,

“To kill oneself.” Ianto finished, his eyes on a far-off point beyond Owen’s shoulder. Jack reached under the table to grasp Ianto’s hand and was immensely relieved when Ianto squeezed his hand back.

Owen watched them carefully for a second but didn’t seem inclined to take the piss out of Ianto. “Right,” he said, “The alien, Sui Caedere or whatever the hell you want to call it, shows up on the planet, hops into a random human and starts off the pattern. The ’39 Torchwood team agrees with our sleep theory. It uses the… carrier’s…” Owen faltered here, trying not to use the word ‘victim’ when a current one was sitting right across from him. He’d found an acceptable word, but from the looks on the teams’ faces it was obvious they’d heard what he hadn’t said. “It uses their life _information_ as it were, to determine the best way to go about death. Varied methods, so it’s not choosy.”

“Once it’s caused the suicide,” Gwen picked up, tracing her hands over the file that they had all clearly read enough to recite by memory, “It hops again, this time into any available person near to the one that committed suicide. It feeds on the despair, on the pain of the death.”

Tosh jumped in quickly, clearly determined that no one could think on Gwen’s words too carefully. “Here there’s definitely a proximity element, it appear to need to be the first person around. Torchwood wasn’t entirely sure. I would guess that anyone finding a dead body would feel some sort of pain over the situation, even if the Caedere doesn’t make the lucky leap into a family member.”

“How long it stays doesn’t seem to be set, presumably until it’s gotten enough to, um, _eat_ so it’s strong enough to make another jump. Eventually though, it makes the hop into another person to start the whole thing over again.” Owen finished.

“Alright, so we’ve got the pattern. Cause: it’s hungry and depression is its favorite food. Fine.” Jack recapped, “You said you knew how to kill it?”

All three of them nodded, a little reluctantly. Ianto couldn’t stand the hesitation. “But not without killing its host.” It wasn’t a question.

Jack looked between Tosh, Gwen and Owen. Owen stared at Ianto steadily, as if assessing physical health just from watching. Gwen and Tosh, though, were staring at the table. Both of them seemed unable to meet Jack’s eyes no matter how he tried to get them to.

“This was the second case Torchwood found.” Owen said quietly, reminding them that he’d started the whole conversation mentioning two cases of the Sui Caedere on Earth. “The first was in the 1700’s, pre-Torchwood. They found it while they were searching for answers. This one got seventeen people, so it stood out. It only stopped because number seventeen used arsenic to kill himself. Turns out, out of every other poison and weapon the other sixteen had used, this managed to kill both of them.”

Jack stared at Owen, his whole body tense the further Owen got through explaining. “How do we know that wasn’t some fluke?” He all but shouted. Beside him Ianto flinched, but Owen just met his furious gaze evenly.

“They weren’t sure, the second time around, but they explained it to the ninth carrier. She killed herself via arsenic under Torchwood supervision. Sui Caedere died too.” Owen answered.

“How do they know? How sure were they?” Jack questioned.

Owen answered, clearly using his “doctor’s voice” to make the truth as impersonal as possible, “Aside from the fact that the suicides stopped after both instances of arsenic poisoning? They confirmed her death but after her body went into convulsions and after _that_ her body started sort of sweating this pearlescent liquid for about five minutes. Not typical corpse behavior.”

Jack practically collapsed back into his chair. The files were right in front of him in black and white but he couldn’t bear to open them and read the words for himself. Aside from the fact that he trusted his team to have poured over them before coming forward with any of this, he couldn’t stand to see the truth of what was happening to his lover.

Apparently, neither could Ianto. He didn’t fall back into his chair like Jack, he stayed ramrod straight as though held together by his armor of respectability but he didn’t reach for the files either and it was _his_ life on the line. “Well that’s it then.”

“No, that it _not_ it.” Jack snarled, tearing his hand out of Ianto’s to tangle it in the younger man’s hair. “Look at me,” he commanded, sitting back up in his chair to meet Ianto’s eyes. “We’re going to figure out another way. Don’t you dare sit there and pretend like we aren’t. If I hear you planning some sort of proper little martyrdom I’ll kill you myself.”

“So you’re just going to watch me while I sleep indefinitely?” Ianto asked as he turned to face Jack. He jerked his head angrily, dislodging Jack’s hands from his body.

“If that’s what it takes!”

“And what if there’s a weevil attack while I’ll napping. What if there’s an alien invasion? Are you going to wake me up and hope we’re not all too exhausted to save lives?” Ianto asked, his voice harsh and rising. Behind him, Tosh put her head in her hands. “What if the Apocalypse comes, Jack? Eventually something is going to happen and watching me sleep isn’t going to be worth the lives that you could have saved if you’d have left me.”

He stopped and bit his lip, clearly more upset than they’d realized, than he’d let them see. He shook his head, “I’ll be _damned_ if I let this thing kill me and I don’t get to take it with me. I won’t risk it hoping into someone else… one of _you_ and… I just won’t. I’d rather do it myself and I’d rather make it count. I _need_ to make it count, Jack.”

Jack stared at Ianto but no words came out. What could he say? That Ianto made his eternal lifetime ever so briefly worth living instead of continuing? That the thought of losing him before the blip of time that he was getting already was up felt unbearable? The words were thick in his throat and sounded selfish in his head.

“I can understand that.”

“Owen!” Gwen gasped, turning to look at him with the same horrified eyes of Tosh and Jack. Even Ianto looked a little shocked and maybe even a little hurt, for all that he seemed pleased _not_ to have to fight with someone.

Even Owen looked uncomfortable with the words that he’d just said. The Hippocratic Oath seemed to be almost choking him. Ianto took some pity on him, whispering, “Thank you.”

Owen grimaced, “I understand the logic and wanting to get the bastard and all that, but that doesn’t mean you should just down some arsenic tonight before we’ve even gotten a chance to think.”

“Think about what?” Ianto asked.

“Another way.” Owen answered, leaning forward as though to make Ianto see more clearly. “No listen,” He said, when Ianto started to protest, “You said we can’t watch you sleep indefinitely. That’s true, even if we were willing and we wanted to this fucked up job wouldn’t allow it forever.”

“We could…” Jack started.

Owen fixed Jack with a withering glare. “Shut up, Harkness.”

“We can’t keep it back forever.” Ianto said again, firmly though his voice was still faint, agreeing with Owen even though he wasn’t entirely sure where the doctor’s point was heading.

“Right,” Owen agreed, “But I think we can manage a few weeks. Long enough to come up with a game plan.”

Ianto didn’t respond except to drop his head onto his crossed arms over the table. Even his ally was fighting him.

“You can’t want to die so much you won’t even fight, Ianto!” Gwen exclaimed.

Owen turned to glare at her. Jack would have too but he couldn’t muster up much more outrage and fire. There was a time, not so very long ago, when Jack knew that Ianto _did_ want to die enough to find this whole thing a blessing. An end to constant pain and shame that included an honorable win for humanity was possibly more than he could have hoped for then. He’d thought that Ianto was out of those times, that the work, the world and Jack had brought him back from that edge. Could he have been wrong?

“If this is what you want, death, a rest, a reason, whatever…” Jack said, watching Ianto with tired eyes. “Then please just say so, Ianto.”

Ianto raised his head and looked at Jack. He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “I’m not looking for an excuse.”

“You’re sure?” Jack asked, even though Tosh was looking at him as though he was insane to press for a different answer. “Without this thing to pressure you, you’d want to live?”

“Of course.” Ianto answered, with no hesitation. It reassured Jack. He was a shitty partner, he knew. Ianto deserved someone who could put him first (instead of behind the planet and the universe and occasionally the Doctor), who could grow old with him, who he could introduce to his family without a thousand questions, who wasn’t so bad at relationships in the 21st century standard and didn’t have the million other quirks, hang-ups and issues that Jack’s already long lifetime had given him. For all that though, he couldn’t imagine being so awful a friend and lover that he would have let ‘suicidal’ fall behind coffee and sex.

No matter how amazing that coffee tasted and mind-blowing the sex was.

 “Then give us some time to figure something else out, another way.” Jack asked, watching Ianto carefully. He wouldn’t put sneaking around behind their backs past Ianto.

“The old Torchwood didn’t figure something else out.” Ianto pointed out, nodding to the files.

Jack gave Ianto a faint grin, trying to reassure the younger man, to take some of the weight of hopelessness from his shoulders, “They were pretty good but they weren’t half the team we are. Besides, it wasn’t one of their own. They didn’t want it nearly as much as we do.”

“Exactly.” Owen agreed. Gwen and Tosh nodded, Gwen going so far as to try to look encouraging. It came off tinged with a bit of pity but Ianto could hardly criticize by then.

“A week.” Ianto offered finally. He made it sound so generous but the part of Jack that still twisted at the extremely optimistic idea of a paltry fifty years with Ianto practically screamed.

“A month.” He countered.

Ianto shook his head. “No.”

“Three weeks.”

“Jack,” Ianto said, turning again to face him. “A week. I can’t sit here and know this thing is going to… A week or I’ll go insane.”

In the end it was Tosh that agreed to Ianto’s terms because Jack couldn’t agree to such a thing out loud and it was like an instantaneous countdown came down over their heads.

If they didn’t figure something out then they were going to lose Ianto in a week or less, one way or another.

 

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**


	4. Days Go By

The next two days were whirlwind of denial and desperation.

“I never thought I’d say it,” Jack said causally, without looking up as Ianto walked into his office with a mug of his favorite elixir. “But Owen seems more crushed about your possible demise than you are.”

The quip might have been too much for someone else but not his cool, calm and collected Ianto. “Is there any better way to go out than to slowly frustrate Owen into insanity?”

Jack barked out a laugh. It felt good and foreign after days that seemed like years, all of them more awful than the last. “Not that I’ve found.” He admitted.

Normally, if Jack didn’t pull him in for a little bit of fun, Ianto would drop off his coffee, make a pointed comment about Jack’s lack of progress on whatever he was working on and then throw a little extra swing to his hips for Jack as he walked away. He’d even been doing that since the entire thing had started, as though he didn’t know that Jack wanted to get as much time with him as possible.

This time, though, he showed Jack a bit of mercy, dropping into the chair opposite him. “And what are you working on while Owen slaves away, Sir?”

“Important things,” Jack assured Ianto, standing up and walking around to lean against the front of his desk. “And what about you? I’ve barely seen you in the last two days.”

Ianto resisted the urge to roll his eyes but the implication of it was definitely present in his tone, “You stare at me while I sleep. I’d say you’ve seen quite a lot of me lately.”

“Not to say that gazing at my Welshman’s beauty isn’t a wonderful pastime but it doesn’t get me quite as much satisfaction as talking to you.” Jack teased, leaning forward into Ianto’s space.

“Oh, is _talking_ what we’re calling it now?” Ianto answered, watching Jack with amused eyes.

Jack snorted, “Funny, Ianto. I meant, I wanted to check in with you to see how you’re doing but you’re practically hiding from me.”

Ianto turned away and that made it obvious that he wasn’t ‘practically hiding’, he was ‘purposefully hiding’.

“I don’t know what else you’d like me to say, Sir.” Ianto said, the words clipped and the tone carefully bland.

Jack ran his hand down Ianto’s cheek to pull the younger man’s face to look at him. Ianto let him, but it was clear he wasn’t thrilled about it. “Yan, you don’t have to spoil for a fight every time we talk.”

“I’m not spoiling for a fight.” Ianto denied, “I just don’t want to keep arguing over how long we have to find another way.”

“I’m surprised at you,” Jack admitted, “You’re going around cleaning the Hub, tidying the archives and keeping the coffee flowing. Shouldn’t you be researching everything you can get your hands on?”

“Aside from the fact that we’ve strayed into a medical problem that I’ve got no expertise in?” Ianto asked, referring to Owen’s task of finding the magical balance between too much arsenic for Ianto and not enough arsenic for Sui Caedere.

Jack nodded, acknowledging his point. “Aside from that.”

Ianto’s hard, tense features softened. He sighed, as though Jack was breaking some part of him down. “I can’t think about it every moment. If… _If,_ ” He stressed, seeing Jack’s face, “We can’t find anything, I don’t want every waking moment I have left desperate and all too aware of how hopeless it is.”

Jack straightened, reacting to the _hopeless_ bit the same way he had every time Ianto had implied it before. “Hey now, it’s not hopeless.”

“Owen’s face is beginning to say it is. Those files say it is,” Ianto said, nodding to the ones still unopened on Jack’s desk. “I’m not saying that I don’t hope someone will run up to me yelling and screaming because they’ve found a way but I’m not going to sit here and beam positivity and then let the last thing I feel be crushed disappointment and pain.”

“Practical under any circumstances.” Jack said, not without a touch of bitterness.

Ianto stood and slid a hand around the back of Jack’s neck, leaning in for a kiss. Jack met him willingly, always ready for kissing Ianto, even when the situation was what it was. Ianto broke the kiss before it could get too heated, all too aware of the intense scrutiny the other team members kept him under. He pressed a smaller kiss to Jack’s lips before pulling back. “I won’t be surprised if you run in with a brilliant way to save me but until that happens, for my sanity, I have to carry on as if this isn’t happening. I’ll go insane, Jack, if I have to think too hard about this damned _thing_ in my body, waiting to direct me to a loaded gun or something just so it can get off on someone’s grief.”

It probably should have been the tense balance he could see on Ianto’s face but it was actually the scorn that he spoke of the alien that was threatening him every moment that convinced Jack that Ianto really did want to kill it without killing himself. He’d needed to hear Ianto’s anger.

“I think, Mr. Jones,” Jack said, handing Ianto his empty carrying tray, “That you’d best let me get back to the budget report.”

Ianto took the tray, letting their hands brush together. He favored Jack with a tight, but grateful smile. “I would, Sir, if you ever actually sat down to do it.”

 

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

 

As the third day of Ianto’s countdown began the mood in the Hub had grown even more dire and depressing, if it was even possible. Owen was working feverishly on breaking down arsenic and trying to determine if there was some way to create something else that wasn’t as lethal to the human body but still lethal to Caedere. Ianto, who was working on the complete cleaning overhaul of the Hub, quietly complained about feeling like a pincushion as Owen took vial after vial of blood for samples to test off of but he held still and offered his arm whenever Owen demanded.

Tosh and Gwen monitored the rift and picked up the slack as much as they could. It hadn’t been the quietest of days, with the weevils acting up twice in one day and one of their _guests_ in the cells pretending to go on a hunger strike, but they dealt with it efficiently. If they welcomed the chance to get out of the Hub and take their aggression out on something that wouldn’t tell on them, then they didn’t mention it.

Jack brooded, mostly.

Sure, he worked on paperwork and he even pretended to take a crack at the next year’s budget as he’d promised Ianto the day before but it was a crock of shit and they all knew it. When he wasn’t boring holes into Ianto’s back, which Ianto continued to be pretty tolerant about, he was pouring over the files that he’d finally gotten the balls to read. There wasn’t any new lead or secret set of instructions that would spare Ianto’s life that he could find but damned if he wasn’t going to look for the fifteenth time.

“How’s the _budget_ coming?”

Jack’s head shot up, surprised by Owen even though he normally heard his team stomping around long before they even got close to his office door. All except for Ianto, although even their silent tea-boy had a hard time sneaking up on him. “You know, I can actually hear the air quotes.”

“Good to know my sarcasm is just that vivid.” Owen said, dropping into a chair opposite Jack.

The Captain couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Do you actually have anything to report?” He said, his voice deceptively light. Better to keep the banter going than to admit how invested he was in the answer.

“Don’t tell Ianto but I don’t think I’m going to be able to do anything with the arsenic.” Owen admitted carefully. “I’ve tried different dosages, cutting it with different substances, different forms… nothing is working properly.”

Jack nodded, he’d imagined that there was nothing that could be done for that. Arsenic wasn’t something that you could play with if the human body was involved. “Any other ideas?”

Owen fidgeted, “Maybe. I’m going to keep working with the arsenic while I work on some other things.”

Jack was about to ask _what_ other things, even though Owen clearly didn’t want to say, but Gwen popped her head into the office, Ianto and a coffee mug behind her.

“Jack? Am I interrupting?” She asked, glancing at Owen. Ianto didn’t bother with pleasantries, he just slid in the doorway passed her and set Jack’s coffee down.

“No, not at all.” Owen answered for him. He sent a sidelong glance at Ianto, “Where’s mine?”

Ianto raised an eyebrow; cool, calm and collected as though his self-imposed week deadline wasn’t getting shorter by the minute. “At your desk, somewhere amongst the debris.”

“That debris is me trying to save lives.” Owen groused with an envious glance at Jack, who helpfully moaned in pleasure while he sipped his coffee.

“Mine, yes. I am aware.” Ianto answered.

Before Owen and Ianto could descend into an argument, Gwen waved her phone in the air to get the attention back on the original reason she’d interrupted. “Just got a call from Andy. There’s been a suicide, young man found by his sister. They’re not sure of anything yet but he fits some of the same criteria as the others so Andy gave a call.”

Ianto folded his hands behind his back and turned to Jack, “Well, I could use the fresh air. We’ll go investigate?”

Jack hesitated.

“I can’t get any _more_ inhabited by suicide-inducing aliens, Jack. It might be good if I head in first and then the rest of you can come along.” Ianto said, his voice a little tight with stress. Since the week had been decided he’d kept everything together admirably well but Jack could see that he did need to get out of the Hub.

He turned to Gwen, “Have them clear the area. No one there, especially the sister. If we can’t find anything to link it to a possible second alien then she’s clear.” He said, hoping that keeping the sister who had found the victim away would be safer for the team. They had to investigate, of course, but he was skeptical about the possibility of two Sui Caedere on Earth at the same time. “Is the body still there?”

“Yes.” Gwen answered, her face twisting up just a little.

“All right, Owen, Ianto, Gwen… we’ll head out. Tosh can monitor the rift from here.” Jack decided. “Owen, bring along anything you’d need to make a field assessment of the body. And…”

“And anything I might need if the pattern is wrong and _another_ alien tries to jump Ianto and we have a renter’s spat on our hands.” Owen finished, hauling himself out of the chair as if he was a weary old man. The job sort of did that to people.

Jack could completely relate.

 

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all for tonight, folks! More tomorrow, promise.


	5. Moving at the Edge of the Cliff

Ianto couldn’t even begin to put into words how absolutely lovely it was to be out of the Hub. It wasn’t that he disliked the Hub, because he loved it, but the walls were beginning to cave in on him.

It was easier to pretend that he wasn’t on the world’s most bizarre suicide watch if he could breathe freely outside. The others still kept their eyes on him as they’d walked out to the car but once inside they were looking outside, at equipment or, in Jack’s case (although it didn’t often seem like it), the road. They weren’t looking at him, staring and putting all the things that Ianto didn’t want to hear and couldn’t handle hearing into their eyes. He didn’t blame them but it was yet another reason why he couldn’t let them have an indefinite amount of time to try and find a solution that might not even be there.

It was clear to him that Tosh didn’t know what to do about the situation. She changed her attitude towards him constantly, as though she was trying to find the right angle to approach the problem and had to try them all out before she cracked it. Sometimes she ignored him, like he was dead already. Sometimes she acted like Gwen, all tears and compassion. Other times she treated him roughly how he would like to be treated, as though nothing was wrong while silently acknowledging that something _was_ wrong but it wasn’t Ianto himself.

Yesterday, she had spent an entire afternoon talking with him and teasing Owen as if nothing was different. He’d thrown in some whipped cream onto her latte as a mix between positive reinforcement and a thank you but she’d gotten teary again by dinner so he figured he’d been a bit too subtle.

Gwen was dealing almost exactly how Ianto thought she would. In his head he chanted things like ‘Just how she is’ and ‘Means well’ but he still kind of wanted to throttle her. Jack’s _team heart_ was breaking right in front of Ianto, as though she was going to be wildly affected by his death. Even when he forgot about how annoyed he was with her, usually after she came up with some snappy comment for Owen or Jack and they shared a long-suffering grin, her whole face would change and she’d look at him as though committing the moment to her memory to comfort her when he was gone.

Besides, since the whole thing had started he and Jack had gone from mostly secretive about their relationship to pretty damn obvious and it was clear she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

That was fine by him though, since he wasn’t sure what to make of a woman that claimed deep love and commitment to one man while shagging one co-worker and quite obviously feeling something for another.

Everyone had their little flaws.

Quite luckily for Ianto, being decent when a patient was having issues wasn’t a flaw of Owen’s. It surprised Ianto sometimes, how actually _good_ a doctor Owen was. He didn’t fuss, which helped tremendously, but he still gave one the genuine sense that he cared and he was going to do his damnedest to make sure you lived.

Ianto figured killing himself was going to be hard on Owen, when – _if_ – they admitted defeat. More so than a co-worker sense, like Gwen or a co-worker/friend sense like Tosh. For Owen, it would be like he’d failed at the one thing he was absolutely dedicated to and brilliant at. Ianto tried to be as accommodating as possible while Owen tried to make arsenic just the right amount of lethal but he knew it his heart it wasn’t going to work. He was pretty sure Owen did too but letting him try was honestly Ianto trying to say thank you. 

He was fairly certain that was also going to be too subtle for Owen to get. That was one of Owen’s flaws, he supposed… Tosh would certainly agree.

Ianto turned in his seat to glance at Jack. The immortal was watching the road carefully, looking for the turn Gwen was describing from the backseat. Sometimes Ianto was surprised that Jack didn’t know his way around Cardiff better, considering how long he’d been there. Then he remembered the decades upon decades of intergalactic travel Jack had experienced and realized that he probably had a lot of places and directions stuffed in his head. It was reminders like that one that made his stomach twist.

Jack, Ianto was sure, would be angry when the week was up. He would fight Ianto on the deadline, would try to make Ianto give him more time and use every bit of emotional blackmail that he could. That they both knew Ianto would hold firm was irrelevant.

Just like he didn’t doubt Jack would be upset after Ianto… killed the alien, he didn’t doubt that it would be a short burst of pain. It was an odd thing to have to adjust to, that not only would their relationship, however far from dabbling they’d gone, not be for Jack the be-all-end-all that it was to Ianto but Jack wouldn’t even end up remembering him when enough time went by. It would take a while, certainly, if for no other reason than Jack would blame himself for Ianto’s death, but eventually he _would_ fade from Jack’s memory.

A hundred years time and his death wouldn’t hurt. Five hundred years time and he would be a distant, hazy memory brought up random occurrences, like the first sip of a good cup of coffee or a young man holding a stopwatch. A thousand years time and Ianto would be forgotten, as if Jack had never cared for him at all and his death hadn’t hurt.

Looking so far out into the future made everything Jack did seem strangely pointless so Ianto avoided doing so. Now though, with his future essentially gone, he couldn’t help wanting to. Instead of making him pull back from Jack, it made him more desperate to connect with him.

He allowed all the little touches that he normally marked as forbidden if the others were around. Now that Jack had called him on avoiding him, they talked about things that Ianto asked to talk about, because Jack was having a  hard time saying no, and Ianto tried to make peace with as many things as possible, not just in their history, but Jack’s too, as if his presence could sooth old hurts. They made passionate, amazing love at night and it was tinged with desperation from both of them.

Half the time, it made him happy that he was taking the good thing he had with Jack and making it better. Other times, it made him feel pathetic. As if intruding on other parts of Jack’s memories and having great sex could make him slightly more memorable, so Jack wouldn’t forget him.

It was selfish. _He_ was selfish. He should wish for Jack to forget him, it was better for Jack in the long run. The sooner he forgot Ianto, the sooner the momentary pain would go away.

It was one thing to know that and quite another to quite literally count down the days until he killed himself and choose that time to pull back from the man he loved. Of everything he’d ever done wrong, and God were there _so many things_ he’d done wrong, it was maybe the only sin he thought he could be forgiven for. Even if he faltered on believing that, the way that Jack reached over and grasped his hand, squeezing it like he’d taken to doing now that Ianto let him, reassured Ianto in ways that he was certain Jack would understand if Ianto ever figured out how to tell him.

“It’s going to be that building there,” Gwen pointed, “The one under construction. The man was an architect who’d been hired to remodel the building and his sister was stopping by to take him out for lunch when she found that he’d hung himself.

“He found an isolated enough place in a construction site to tie a noose, set it up and hang himself with no one walking by or pestering him with questions?” Owen asked, reading the email that Andy had sent with more information over Gwen’s shoulder.

Gwen read out Andy’s explanation of that question in a tight voice, apparently a little bothered by Owen’s proximity. “Apparently there are money problems with the people who hired him for the remodel and the site has been shut down for a few days. He’s been there anyway, though, so his sister stopped by to drag him away, pretty much.”

“Young man on probably his first real assignment gets it shut down over something he can’t control?” Jack asked, skepticism lacing his voice. “Sounds like a stupid but common reason to off yourself.”

Ianto could see Gwen’s glare from the corner of his eye but she didn’t say anything so he didn’t either. Jack might think it was stupid but Ianto could understand how impending failure could be too much for someone. Gwen might see that too but he wasn’t sure she’d ever really felt it.

“We should still check it out.” Owen decided, as though his vote was the only vote.

Owen’s vote certainly wasn’t the only one but turning around to go back to the Hub was less than appealing. “I agree.” Ianto said, glancing at Jack.

The other man nodded and Ianto decided to take that as valuing their shared opinion over valuing a dying man’s wish. He was probably over reacting… it wasn’t as though Jack wasn’t obsessively turning over every stone he could to find something to help.

With the police presence outside, it was easy for Torchwood to glide up in their SUV to park wherever they pleased and leave it for everyone else to work around. It would probably make for a better relationship with the locals if Jack didn’t do it but Ianto could plainly see that he took perverse pleasure in it.

One of the officers walked up to Jack, clearly the unlucky one of the group. “Davidson wanted to call you because it is a suicide in the right age range and there’s no medical history of depression that we’ve been able to find,” He started, sparing no time for small talk. “But our best guess is that the kid actually wanted to do it.”

“No signs or history of depression?” Owen asked to clarify.

“No, but there was a lot riding on this and his sister says that he’s been acting different with all the pressure he’s been under. Apparently there’s also a fairly recent breakup in play.” With that answer, the possibility of another alien seemed even less likely.

“Anything been moved?” Jack asked lightly, as though they hadn’t just made the silent group decision that aliens probably weren’t at play in a local death.

The man shook his head, “No, not even the body.”

Jack nodded, “The sister still here?”

“No, we’ve taken her to the station.”

“We’re going to take a look around.” Jack said, breezing passed the other man. The implication was clear: _go take a break and let the big kids take a turn_.

They left the man in their wake, going through the crime scene tape and ducking behind the thick plastic sheeting that was serving as a door to the shell of a building.

“I’ve got no eye for architecture,” Jack said, giving Ianto a lazy once over to remind them of the unforgotten fact of Jack’s real interests, “But this place looks like it’s going to be pretty great.”

Ianto agreed that it was a fair assessment, although he wasn’t much better with buildings than Jack.

Gwen moved to the blueprints sitting on a table towards the center of the room and Owen glanced through the partially unfinished ceiling up at the level above where they knew the body was waiting. “How many floors up did they say he was?”

Gwen answered, “Three… There are four floors, but the top one is inaccessible.”

“This building is secure, yes?” Owen asked, glancing around with less admiring eyes than Jack.

“Supposedly as long as we keep to the areas that aren’t cordoned off.” Jack answered, “But let me step first.”

They all started the trek up the exposed staircase when one of the officers poked their head in and motioned to Gwen. She turned back down the stairs and walked over to talk to the officer.

“They’ve probably found a suicide note or something.” Owen grumbled as if he hadn’t decided that the scene had still been worth a look.

“Cuts down on your autopsy queue.” Ianto pointed out and Owen nodded in relieved agreement.

Despite the fact that half of the floor was missing in certain spots are there were few walls, the structure seemed otherwise sound. They worked their way up to the third floor where the body still hung and Ianto could hear Gwen at the bottom of the stairs taking them two at a time to catch up.

“The police have another call, I told them we would stay until the coroner shows, unless we need to take the body with us and then I’ll just give them a call.” She called up the stairs. “That good with you, Jack?”

Jack’s attention was on the corpse swinging over in the back corner of the room, but he absently shouted back the affirmative all the same. “It’s always the cute ones.”

“That what, sir? Have unexpected depths or look good even in death?” Ianto asked.

Owen rolled his eyes, already going to work on the field assessment. “If necrophilia is one of your things, Harkness, I don’t want to hear about it.”

“It’s always the unassuming, cute ones that dramatically blow up.” Jack clarified, shooting them all a look that was only half-harrassed. Even he could understand their shaky understanding of 51st century sexuality. Still, there were lines that apparently did have to drawn and mentioned. “For the record, I require signs of life before anything gets fun. I’d say a heartbeat but that’s not always… _applicable_.”

Jack’s grin made Ianto work that much harder to keep his face impassive but he knew Jack could see through it. It seemed like an odd joke to make in the situation but he appreciated the lack of sensitivity. Somehow, it made everything more normal… they didn’t tend to be a particularly tactful group.

With Jack and Owen’s bickering and Gwen egging them on it felt so normal that Ianto was torn between smiling so widely his face could split in two or bursting into awkward tears. It seemed so absurd that he would remember how truly wonderful Torchwood and the people who worked in its name could be when it was the work itself that might end him soon enough. Only days from now and his life would be over at his own hand. His timetable, his rules, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t terrifying and…

_Terrifying?_

There was nothing terrifying about the building they were in, even with the dead body swinging. It was fairly tame for them, after all, and Ianto couldn’t tell why an obviously unrelated suicide would be making his chest feel tight.

He turned away from the scene in case that was what was causing his strange surge of emotions, walking around the room and looking at the bare walls, careful not to step in places that weren’t completed. There wasn’t much to look at, just exposed walls and large unfinished portions. On the opposite end of the room from the others, there were large sheets of plastic hanging to protect what looked like the start of a balcony.

“Ianto?”

Jack’s voice called from the other side of the room and startled Ianto. “Just looking around, sir.” He called back.

He turned back to the wall he’d been staring at and eyed the plastic carefully. Another room, maybe? He wasn’t entirely sure what lay beyond the plastic but he was strangely curious about it. The architecture was actually fairly interesting, for all that it was painfully unfinished.

Ianto took two quick steps to the plastic sheeting and lifted it, closing his eyes against the glare of the sun.

_It’s too bright. The sun didn’t bother my eyes like this when we left the Hub. But then, it is rather dark in the Archives._

**Ianto…**

_In about twenty minutes’ time I need to head back to make the coffee. God forbid Owen’s schedule be altered in any way._

**Answer me, Ianto!**

_Jack will be waiting too. He thinks he’s so invisible when he sits up in his office. Like I won’t notice him watching and smiling while I make coffee and give it out to everyone else. The minute my feet hit the stairs, he’s back at his desk, pretending to be working on something. Boss and naughty secretary are entirely too easy to play._

**Oh God.**

_Is Jack already calling?_

**Don’t move. Ianto, listen to me. Stay still.**

_It’s been a quiet morning but that never guarantees an easy afternoon (or night, or incredibly early next morning). Does he need me to monitor the CCTV while the others go out?_

**Ianto, can you hear me? I need to you to try. Answer me.**

_I would rather go with them than stay in and watch over the Rift. I have to go ask Jack to let me go out into the field. The breeze feels too good on my face to want to head back inside the Hub._

**Stop, Ianto, please! Don’t move.**

_Breeze? There isn’t a breeze in the Archives. But when did I go back to the Archives? We’ve been out all morning. I’m already with Jack._

**Wake up, Ianto.**

_I_ am _awake. I’m_ not _in the Hub. The sun is in my eyes but my eyes are closed. We need to check out the body, but I don’t think it’s got anything to do with…_

Ianto’s eyes snapped open and the bottom dropped out of his world, quite literally. He was standing on the edge of a beam, out suspended over a busy street, three floors up.

_Oh God…_


	6. The Ledge

Ianto couldn’t tell if the rush of dizziness was because he’d made the classic error of looking down almost immediately or if the daytime highjacking of his own damned body had left him lightheaded and trembling.

For a long moment he just stood there. His ears were ringing and his eyes were taking in the slowly growing crowd at the bottom of the street. Gwen was down there, telling people to get away in the name of Torchwood and sending people back behind barriers.

His knees almost buckled, and for one horrible, weightless second he thought he would fall. He braced his legs, locking his knees to keep still. His arms waved and at the last second he righted himself. Sound snapped back into place almost overwhelming for a second. People were screaming to him, some telling him to jump and others shouting silly words of encouragement ( _Life is beautiful! You’ll get better! God loves you! Smile!)_.

Above all their voices, though, came Jack’s.

“Ianto, answer me.”

He said the words calmly but Ianto could hear some of what was underneath it. It was barely held together desperation, the steel of the head of Torchwood… more than he could even begin to identify and catalogue.

“Jack?”

His voice wavered and Ianto wasn’t sure if it came out loud enough to be heard but he could hear Jack’s heaving sigh of relief and he knew that Jack had heard him.

“ _Ianto_ , thank god…” That part was whispered and Ianto wasn’t sure he was meant to hear it. He raised his voice to be sure that Ianto could hear it, “Don’t move, stay still.”

“Yes, sir. I shouldn’t like to move.” He called back with a hysterical little laugh.

“He’s swaying.” Owen’s voice, all doctor. “I wouldn’t trust him to walk back on his own.”

“I know but now that he doesn’t step forward every time I try to go to him, I can help.” Jack answered Owen and then raised his voice to call out to Ianto, “I want you to stay right there. I’m going to come out to you and we’ll walk back together, okay, Ianto?”

Ianto shook his head and immediately regretted it. The world spun; a lethal sensation for the first time in his life. “I won’t have you fall with me, Jack.”

“Oh baby, I’ve already fallen for ya.” Jack called back.

“ _Now_ Harkness?” Owen said, his voice a little disgusted but not at all surprised.

Jack laughed but it was forced. “You have to trust me, Ianto.”

“I don’t know what happened.” Ianto admitted and even without having much time to think about it, he knew what it meant. Sleep wasn’t a factor anymore. Jack had threatened the alien inside of Ianto, they’d been stopping it every chance they could… it was fighting back. He’d be given no peace now. Even if Jack got him down safely… “Jack, I didn’t do this. I didn’t fall sleep, I…”

“Shh, Ianto.” Jack soothed. He could feel the beam he was standing on move, tremble really, with Jack’s weight as he cautiously stepped out onto the beam with Ianto.

“It doesn’t even matter. You’re saving me so I can die in a few hours.” Ianto said, his voice cracking. He couldn’t stand to look out at the buildings opposite theirs and couldn’t even imagine looking down again. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to ignore the tears that slipped out his shut eyelids.

Jack sounded closer as he spoke, “We’re going to figure something out. I’ve still got plenty of time, love.”

“Jack,” Ianto said again before his voice completely gave out. He tried not to sob, but for the first time he felt truly shattered and hopeless, same as he had after Lisa.

But there was Jack, again. The other man was right behind him, “I’m here, don’t move. I’m going to touch you.”

Ianto felt Jack’s hands, warm and strong, against his suit jacket. One hand curled around his side and the other held his arm, “Turn around, slowly.” He urged, using his hands to steady Ianto.

Ianto didn’t bother to open his eyes, he just let Jack’s hands guide him. Once he faced Jack, Ianto could hear the other man sigh. The hand on his arm reached up to cup his cheek, thumb wiping away the tears that Ianto hadn’t been able to hold back.

“Don’t cry, Yan.”

He opened his eyes and tried to smile for Jack. “I’m not.”

Jack laughed, “Okay, you’re not. We’re going to slowly walk back now, okay? I’m going to keep you steady but if you think you’re going to fall or you need a minute, tell me.” That was a command and even through blurry eyes, Ianto could see how serious Jack was.

They stayed still for a long minute, neither of them talking. Jack wanted an answer, that was clear, but it was equally clear that Ianto didn’t have one for him.

Jack had been working so hard to save him. He had guarded his sleep for days, working on almost none himself. When Ianto worked Jack ran back and forth from the Archives, retrieving reports and reading them with one eye out the windows to his office. He encouraged the others, delegating tasks and ideas to be investigated. He met with Owen as often as he thought there had been a breakthrough…

Most important of all he gave Ianto a reason to hope, though it hurt, and a reason to keep fighting. He was sure they were going to fail but seeing Jack try so hard made Ianto’s heart swell. If anyone could figure out a way, it was their team, with Jack at the head. Even when Ianto felt all right about the outcome of the week, Jack’s determination soothed his ragged nerves. He tried resolutely to ignore the looming deadline and now it didn’t matter. The alien had forced Jack’s hand… the beam they were standing on, out over a Cardiff street three stories up, proved it.

Ianto wanted to hear it, needed to know that Jack saw what he did. “Say it,” He begged suddenly, while Jack still waited for his answer.

_I’m going to stay with you until the end._

_Your death will save lives._

_I want you to know that I did everything I could._

Jack blinked, confused but unphased. “I love you.”

Ianto could do nothing but let Jack lead him back to solid ground.

 

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

 

“You said one week! You gave me one full week to figure something out!” Jack reminded through a clenched jaw. Ianto could see that he wanted to shout. If he did though, he wouldn’t be Jack, leader of Torchwood – he’d be Jack, Ianto’s lover. Apparently Jack thought that an impassioned plea wouldn’t win his case but Ianto wasn’t so sure.

Jack would have shifted roles in a second if he suspected Ianto might cave to that version of himself, so he didn’t let on. It was easier to fight with his boss, interestingly enough. “A week based on the situation as it was. We had all the waking hours in a week to sort it, but now we can’t even be certain of those.”

“We’ve already been keeping an eye on you, love.” Gwen reminded, “We’ll just keep a closer one. We caught you this time, didn’t we?”

Ianto smiled bitterly, “Because me walking out onto a half-finished balcony to totter out on exposed beams was obvious and slow. What if I grab a gun from one of you and blow my brains out before you can even blink? What if you’re watching me but with my back to you I lace my drink with poison?” Gwen tried to look confident but her face crumbled just a little and Ianto saw it. They all did and it was Ianto’s point all wrapped up in a pitying package. Those scenarios were too simple to accomplish, too realistic for Gwen to brush them aside as easily as she had been able to only hours before.

“We’ll figure this out, Ianto.” Tosh started, but Jack cut her off.

“We just need more time.”

Ianto bit his lip and shook his head. “There isn’t anything, Jack.” Jack shook his head and Ianto could see him breaking under Ianto’s continued rejections. They were all in a loose circle but Ianto crossed it to stand in front of Jack and run his hand along the other man’s cheek.

“You don’t know that, Ianto,” Jack whispered, leaning forward to wrap an arm around Ianto’s waist and speak quietly in his ear. If his voice trembled a little, Ianto wouldn’t mention it. “You’re giving up too easily,”

And just like that, Ianto’s lover weakened his resolve. “Shh…” He whispered, trying to make Jack stop and soothe him all at the same time. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tosh bringing a shaking hand up to her mouth and behind them Gwen made a twisted, sad little sound. Ianto would have expected her to scoff at such open affection between him and a man that she had some sort of feelings for but maybe he wasn’t giving her enough credit.

It was Owen that surprised him all the more.

“What… what if…” Owen started and stopped, running his hand through his hair and shifting on his feet. “What if we freeze you?”

Pushing free from Jack’s arms, Ianto stared at him, his mouth open in shocked disgust. “Fuck you, Owen Harper. I can’t believe you’d subject me to some cryogenic limbo…”

“No!” Owen interrupted, holding his hands out as if to physically appeal to Ianto. “Not cryogenics. I mean honest to God freezing. It’s a nice way to go out, you just get cold and fall asleep.”

“What part of ‘will not die in vain’ and ‘take the bastard with me’ is too complex for you?” Ianto asked. He laughed with no humor, all of the doubt that Jack had instilled in him seconds before was gone in the face of Owen trying to convince him to take a coward’s way out. “I’m not afraid of a little arsenic.”

Owen’s frustration was palpable. “That’s not what I’m bloody suggesting!”

“Then why don’t you suggest it and quit beating around the bush.” Jack ordered, staring at Owen coldly.

Owen took a deep breath and turned to Ianto again. “We lock you in a room, use the Hub’s temperature controls to set it into freezing territory. Your heart will shut down, you’ll be practically dead, dead enough to trick it. Jack walks in, it hops to him. I should… I _will_ be able to revive you, so long as we time everything right. It’s out of you and Jack can take the arsenic. It’ll die and he’ll wake up.”

The other four stared at him for a long moment.

“That could actually work?” Gwen asked, glancing back and forth between Owen and Ianto. Though it wasn’t certain whether she was questioning him or backing him up.

Owen nodded to her all the same, glad for someone who wasn’t outright rejecting the idea. “We’ll have to time it out perfectly and get everything ready ahead of time but that won’t be hard.”

“And what, you thaw me out and I’m just fine?” Ianto asked faintly, almost swaying where he stood. Jack reached out and curled an arm around him, even though the moment from before was over. Normally Ianto would shake him off with the others around but after everything they’d seen already he couldn’t have cared less.

“There’s a possibility of some nerve damage, of course.” Owen admitted, “And a few other choice bits but I’m pretty sure we can make this work.”

Jack stepped forward, though his arm stayed wrapped around Ianto. _Pretty sure_ wasn’t good enough. “You’re _certain_ this could work?” Jack pressed.

Owen nodded, somehow both more and less confident than Ianto would have liked. So much risk, either way…

Jack’s hard gaze darted between Tosh and Gwen, “And we haven’t figured anything else out?”

Tosh wrung her hands, “No, Jack. I’ve been looking for anything we’ve got in the archives, searching medical databases… there’s nothing.” Beside her, Gwen nodded. They both looked tired and Ianto hadn’t truly noticed it until then. His throat grew tight again… they had all been working so hard to save him.

Anyone could see Jack’s decision in his squared shoulders and heavy sigh. Ianto closed his eyes, “You want me to try this.”

He could feel Jack shift in front of him. A strong kiss was pressed to his lips and Ianto responded, lost in Jack the same as always.

Even if Owen couldn’t revive him, Jack would take the alien in him next and he could take the arsenic. Ianto hated that he would be the cause of one of Jack’s deaths but he hated the pleading pain in Jack’s eyes just as strongly. At the base of their relationship was Ianto’s eternal gratefulness that Jack had pulled him out of the despair of Lisa’s death to give him meaning and love again. If Jack was willing, if he wanted to try this and the end of being only half in control of his own body was won either way… well, then Ianto couldn’t say no.

He opened his eyes and Jack seemed to immediately read the answer he’d wanted. He kissed Ianto again and whispered a thank you against his lips.

Jack pulled back and turned, clearly unwilling to let Ianto think over it much longer, “Owen, how long do you need to get this ready?”

Owen tilted his head to the side, considering. Ianto could practically see the calculations happening in his head. “Two hours.” He answered finally.

That seemed like an impossibly short amount of time to Ianto but Jack only nodded. “What do you need from us?”

 

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

As it turned out, Owen essentially needed them all to get out. Gwen got sent out for some extra supplies and Tosh programmed the temperatures and locks to the rooms Owen already had in mind, but Jack and Ianto were sent immediately away. Owen had instructed Ianto to take care of any physical business he might not want to have _linger_ while he was semi-dead and to not eat anything to speed up the process, but otherwise, he was ordered away for Owen’s two hours.

Other couples faced with two hours left until they both, hopefully temporarily, _died_ would probably reminisce and whisper tearful declarations of love and devotion.

Jack and Ianto were a decidedly more physical sort of couple.

Ianto wasn’t even completely down the ladder before Jack was on him. Hot, roaming hands ran down his chest while Jack plastered himself to Ianto’s back, chest already bare. Ianto turned his head, catching Jack’s lips in an already-breathless kiss. Jack’s hands started working the buttons on his shirt, undoing them with a masterful accuracy that Ianto had long since given up feeling as though he wasn’t doing enough to drive Jack wild over. The older man made quick work of the shirt, slipping it off with his suit jacket and making a half-hearted attempt to throw it gently out of the way.

Their bodies had to separate to get the clothing off Ianto but their mouths did not. Ianto breathed heavily into the kiss, nipping Jack’s bottom lip just to hear him groan. He let his hands slide down Jack’s chest until he hit the other man’s belt.

Jack pulled Ianto back into another kiss, his teeth dragging on Ianto’s bottom, already kiss-swollen lip and sucking it into his mouth, and Ianto couldn’t help the moan that slipped out, always in love with the way that Jack kissed him and owned him all at the same time. Jack kept up the overwhelming kisses, mixing in tiny nips and almost obscene little licks with his tongue.

Pulling back, Jack licked at his own lips, which were wet and reddened and Ianto felt the same surge of pride that he felt whenever he visibly affected Jack. “You’re so damned perfect,” Jack praised, using his hands on Ianto’s hips to direct him to the bed. With a non-too gentle shove, Ianto fell back onto the bed, naked and panting. Jack stood above him with dark eyes, “All I ever want is to make you come apart… because of me, in my bed, on my cock…”

“Jack.” Ianto moaned, hands clenching in the sheets underneath him “Jack, want you to fuck me…”

“Then be a good boy,” Jack smirked, his intense eyes raking over Ianto, lingering on his already rock hard cock, “And I’ll make you feel so good, so alive.”

“Yes,” Ianto agreed, needing it in a way that he never had before. He’d never been so desperate for Jack and the way that Jack could make him feel. He arched his hips up into Jack’s hands when the other man ran a possessive hand down his flushed skin.

“You’re so beautiful,” said Jack, his warm, calloused hands running underneath Ianto’s body and stopping on the curve of his bottom, squeezing the flesh there. “I’m so hot for you, Ianto.”

“Then perhaps, Sir, you should do something about it,” Ianto egged him on, grinding his arse down into Jack’s palm. Jack grinned above him and then practically lunged down, dragging his mouth over Ianto’s skin, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses down his chest. Jack pushed him further up the bed, leaving himself enough room to spread out on his stomach in front of Ianto. He licked a broad stripe over Ianto’s cock, making the younger man gasp. Just when Ianto thought that Jack was settling in for a good blow job, he kept moving downwards, nuzzling his balls and then spreading Ianto’s cheeks. Ianto could feel Jack’s hot breath against his exposed hole. “Jack… Jack…”

Jack chuckled from between Ianto’s legs, “Shhh, baby, I’ve got you.” Ianto’s body was beginning to tremble and he didn’t have to see Jack’s face to know the man was grinning at the obvious effects he was having on his lover. Ianto was so far gone with pleasure and anticipation, he hardly noticed when Jack’s strong hands lifted his hips to settle a pillow under him. What he did notice was when Jack gripped his legs and spread them apart, leaving him even more exposed. This was hardly the first time he’d been so open to Jack’s eyes, but he couldn’t think of a time he’d ever been more vulnerable to another person.

Jack leaned back down, “Going to open you up with my tongue, you always taste so good...”

“Yes, yes please.” Ianto gasped, trying not to move his hips up towards Jack. His fingers gripped the edges of the pillow under his hips. “Need you so badly, Jack.”

“You have me,” Jack murmured, before Ianto felt the other man’s tongue flick out and lick at his hole, and Ianto momentarily forgot what words were, capable only of moaning desperately.

Jack swirled the tip of his tongue around Ianto’s hole, “Is this what you want?” Jack’s voice was low, none of his usual teasing banter coloring his tone. “Tell me, Ianto.”

“Oh god...” Ianto groaned, trying to open his legs wider to give Jack more room. “More, please more. Want you in me.”

Jack laughed again, his voice dark and rough as he tilted his head to kiss the inside of Ianto’s thigh. “You belong to me,” he said, voice clear and heavy with promise, before his mouth licked slowly and purposely across Ianto’s entrance, clearly intent on driving him crazy with his smooth tongue and the wet kisses he trailed across his lover’s hole.

Though Ianto knew what was coming, he couldn’t help arching his back and practically shouting into the dark room when Jack’s tongue slipped past the ring of muscle, determined to get inside and open him up. “Oh fuck, Jack…. Jack!”

Jack barely reacted to Ianto’s desperate reaction except to wrap a hand around Ianto’s hips to keep him still. His other hand pushed Ianto’s legs up higher, opening him up further to make it easier for him to spear his tongue into him eagerly, getting him all loose and wet, and Ianto shuddered with the knowledge that Jack was preparing his body to get fucked long and hard after Jack had his fill eating him out. He forcibly relaxed one of his hands and reached down between his legs to run his fingers through Jack’s hair. He was beyond caring what he looked like, knowing the picture he must have made spread out on his back, legs open wide in the air, cock hard and leaking and Jack’s face between his legs while Ianto clutched at his head, trying to get the other man to tongue-fuck his hole even harder.

Once Jack’s tongue got a good rhythm going, his hand moved up to Ianto’s leaking cock, which had been neglected until then. He wrapped his hand around Ianto’s cock, pumping the shaft at the same pace that his tongue was stabbing into Ianto’s hole. Ianto’s fingers clenched in Jack’s hair from the almost overwhelming pleasure. He wanted to touch Jack and make him feel as good as Jack was making him feel but there was pretty much no way to do it in his current position. Jack had probably set them up that way on purpose, definitely one of the men that loved focusing on their lover’s pleasure. It was probably a source of pride how hot he could get Ianto while holding onto his own control.

Ianto arched his back again, almost ready to come. “Jack, please, so close.”

 Jack pushed away from Ianto’s entrance, pulled his mouth off and kissed the wet before sitting up. He leaned over Ianto to grab the lube in his bedside table. “God Ianto, you should see yourself. So hot and ready for me. I’m going to fuck you so hard…”

Ianto groaned, hearing the promise in Jack’s words. “Jack,”

Jack leaned forward and caught Ianto’s panting mouth into a kiss. They broke apart quickly because they were breathing so harshly, but just as quickly pressed their lips together again desperately.

“You’re going to lay here and let me fuck you as hard as I want, aren’t you baby?” Jack asked, breathing just as heavily as Ianto, “You’re not going to touch yourself either, you’re going to come on my cock and only from my cock, because you’re mine.”

Such words of possession weren’t the sorts of things that Jack usually said to Ianto, because it went against his 51st century idea of relationships, but the words warmed something in Ianto anyway. He bit his lip, nodding frantically. He’d agree to anything if only Jack would finally slide inside of him and fuck him hard like he’d been promising.

Jack quirked his lips at Ianto’s obvious, obedient need. Ianto heard him fumbling with the cap, out of his line of sight, and then the unmistakable sounds of Jack slicking himself up. All too soon and not soon enough, Ianto could feel the blunt head of Jack’s cock pressing against his hole. Jack slowly slid into him, inch by inch, until he was buried inside Ianto. “God, Ianto… you feel amazing.” Jack groaned a little raggedly. Normally they’d do more prep than what Ianto had gotten, but the slight burn of his muscles having to stretch around Jack felt amazing to Ianto. He wanted to feel Jack for the hours to come, to remind him of how Jack loved him.

 “So good, Jack,” Ianto said breathlessly. His voice was almost a whisper but Jack heard him all the same.

“Feels good?” Jack asked above him. He watched Ianto with an almost crazed expression on his face. He stayed still inside Ianto, savoring the first slide inside. Jack leaned down and kissed Ianto again, once on the mouth and then trailing down to his neck.

Ianto ran his hands over Jack’s back. “Move,” he ordered through gritted teeth. He already felt ready to burst into a million pieces and the only thing that would save him was Jack. “God, please Jack…”

Ianto could feel Jack’s harsh breathing against his neck as Jack started thrusting slowly. The slow slide of Jack’s cock inside his channel felt like heaven. Neither of them could stand the slow pace for very long and Jack started thrusting harder and faster into Ianto’s still tight hole as best he could. Though it wasn’t without some pain, the pleasure made it impossible for Ianto to care.  The only thing that mattered to him was Jack’s cock moving inside him, the drag of the other man’s stomach over his own trapped cock and Jack’s lips moving across his skin.

“God, Jack, I love you, fuck…I love you.” Ianto said, the words falling from his lips practically incoherently.

“I love you,” Jack mouthed against his skin, the words were slightly less common coming from Jack, but when the other man said them, Ianto knew them to be true. “You’re so tight, so hot. Love you, love fucking you,”

Jack straightened back out, rising up from where he’d been practically plastered against Ianto’s chest. Ianto almost whimpered when the opportunity for his cock to slide against Jack’s stomach was taken away from him but pulling his legs to the side and staring down at where he was connected with Ianto was a sight erotic enough to distract Ianto. Jack glanced at him, grinning wickedly, when his thrusts slowed and Jack slowly pulled out until only the head of his cock was just inside Ianto’s hole.

 “Unh, Jack, please” Ianto moaned, trying to move his hips force Jack back inside of him. 

Jack teasingly thrust in shallowly, barely giving Ianto what he wanted. The other man’s eyes darted between Ianto’s legs and back up to his lover’s face. He seemed to love how desperate he’d made Ianto.

Ianto started babbling, “Jack, please, please, I need you, please…”

Just when Ianto thought he’d go mad from his lover’s teasing, Jack’s hips surged forward, burying himself back inside Ianto with one hard thrust. Ianto’s back arched again, a long moan spilling from his lips. Immediately, Jack’s thrusts had him snapping into Ianto at a relentless pace. Neither one of them could handle much more. Ianto was so close and Jack was practically pounding the spot inside of him guaranteed to send him over the edge.

 “Ianto!” Jack said, practically growling his name out. He was obviously close, his thrusts losing their rhythm. Though Jack had ordered him not to touch himself, he grabbed Ianto’s hand and pulled it up to his own cock, demanding, “Touch yourself, let me watch you. Come for me, Ianto.”

Ianto was shaking, he did as Jack ordered and wrapped his hand around himself, his thumb brushed against the tip of his own cock to catch the pearl of pre-come and he spread it all over his cock.

“Come on baby, come on, want to see you…” Jack chanted, watching Ianto stroke himself. Inside of him, Jack’s cock slammed into his prostate again and that was it for Ianto. His vision clouded and he shouted out his orgasm. Distantly, he could hear Jack’s own shout of completion and he could feel a rush of heat fill him.

For a long moment, neither of them move or spoke. Ianto’s lungs ached as he worked to catch his breath. Jack shifted, pulling out of him and crossing the room to grab something to wipe them up with. Ianto let the other man clean him up and only moved to shift over and give Jack a bit more than the sliver of space he would have gotten otherwise.

Jack laid down beside him, letting his finger tips run along Ianto’s cooling skin. He kissed Ianto’s cheek but Ianto didn’t turn to look at him like Jack obviously wanted.

“I love you,” Ianto said, ignoring Jack’s attempts to catch his eyes. He should have probably been willing to at least meet his lover’s gaze but touching Jack almost made it too much… looking at him could only be painful. “I love you, this is worth it, every second is worth it and if you remember me, remember that.”

“Ianto…” Jack said, his voice breaking for the first time in the last few days that Ianto could remember.

Ianto cut him off. He didn’t want maudlin statements but that he at least had to know Jack understood. “I don’t… I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to lay here with you for the next however many minutes. Just tell me you understand and you accept it.”

Jack didn’t seem able to speak, he just pressed his face against Ianto’s cheek and nodded. That was enough for him.

 


	7. Three Deaths and a Promise Fulfilled

It was two hours and fifteen minutes before Tosh came looking for them. She knocked cautiously on the hatch to Jack’s quarters but Ianto and Jack were already on their way up.

“Owen’s ready for you.” She said quietly, eyes taking in Jack pulling Ianto up with a helping hand and then that hand refusing to let go once Ianto was on even ground. Gwen had commented to her that Jack and Ianto had seemed quite touchy-feely lately and wasn’t that so out of character for Ianto? Tosh hadn’t been sure what to say. If it where her, she would have spent a good part of the week a crying wreck in the corner… if Ianto wanted to seek physical reassurance from Jack a bit more often, who where they to judge him?

Jack gave them both a wide smile. He seemed off to Tosh but not in a new way. Every once and a while, Jack would seem so _Jack_ that it had to be fake, like he thought that whatever he really felt would be too much for the poor 21 st century humans, so he said and did everything they expected while something much darker and much more Jack roiled under the surface. This was definitely one of those times.

“Come, my pretty little icicle.” Jack said, raising their clasped hands to kiss the back of Ianto’s.

Jack pulled him down the hall and behind his back, Tosh and Ianto exchanged exasperated yet fond glances.

Anyone could have seen the strain in both of their faces.

Time seemed to swirl around Ianto. He barely paid attention to Owen’s earnest walk-through of what was to come or Gwen’s sweet pep talk. He nodded tightly to both of them, favored Tosh with a hand squeeze and tried to ignore Jack as best he could. They’d said what they needed to say, anything else was just desperate and sappy and painful. Jack seemed to understand, just as he’d understood how Ianto didn’t really want to have some long drawn out speech down in his bunker.

It seemed like no time at all before Ianto was standing in the room he was going to die in.

“Look, now that we don’t have the weeping duo and Captain ‘This may be the last time I can eye-fuck the tea boy’ Harkness standing around, let’s go over this again without you ignoring the whole thing.” Owen said, shutting the door behind him. He glanced over to the corner where a little red light indicated that the camera Tosh had set up was recording but quickly averted his eyes, as though he didn’t want Ianto to notice it.

Ianto glanced at Owen, then back to the freshly cleaned floor. No pillow, not fabric of any kind. Nothing that could store heat and slow the process down. “As I understood it, my role in this is going to be rather passive.”

Owen shrugged, watching him with a close eye. “Well, still. It’s good to know what’s going to happen, don’t you think?” He stepped closer and gestured for Ianto’s hand. A little wristwatch looking bracelet was strapped to his wrist and Ianto didn’t need to be told that it was going to monitor his vitals. Better to be sure he was dead than risk an unfortunate timing snafu, he thought wryly.

“I’m going to sit here while the room gets progressively colder until I’m sleepy. After that it’s going to be out of my hands.” Ianto pointed out. Truth be told, he wasn’t much interested in what was going to happen after. There was likely going to be quite a bit of room for error and he didn’t want to know specifically how much.

Owen was still searching his face. He nodded, as though he heard the words not being said. It was occasionally surprising to Ianto, even still, that Owen could be a functioning, kind human being if he wanted to be.

“As best you can, don’t curl up or fight it. Just fall asleep.” Owen instructed quietly. He hesitated for a second, like he wanted to say something more but wasn’t sure how. That was more the Owen he was used to. He quirked a wan smile, which threw Owen back into his regular, unbearable self. The doctor rolled his eyes, “See you in a bit, Teaboy.”

Owen turned to leave, and before Ianto could even process it, he called him back, “Owen,” He said, then hesitated himself. Owen turned and kept his face carefully blank. That was probably more courtesy than Ianto deserved. “Whether this works or not… thank you for trying.”

There was only another nod to that and it struck Ianto how stupid they must look on the camera for the others. Nothing but smirks, bare nods and monosyllables… a very manly final conversation. Owen closed the door without another word and Ianto didn’t bother trying to stall him. This was happening and it was happening because he insisted. Suddenly alone in the room, though certainly not alone in private, he felt a sort of dread that he hadn’t really felt yet. He had tried so hard the entire week since that awful night when Jack woke him up angry and frantic to be as emotionless about the whole thing as possible. He didn’t want to break down over it, didn’t want to let his final days be some sort of sad slow death. Now those days were over and Ianto felt it all catching up to him.

He sat down on the floor, cross legged at first. He was sure he was going to end up having to move but for now he at least wanted to metaphorically stand tall. The vents gave off a low groan, cranking to life to pump cold air into the room. Within minutes he was chilled and the urge to pull his legs up to conserve heat had already cropped up.

It was a strange thing, to have to sit still and make peace with death. Either way, he would be dying, that much was certain. Even if they revived him, he might not be the same as he was before. Everything was up in the air. For a man that liked to keep things orderly and in control, it was a bit frustrating. It was probably fitting though, in a weird way.

He thought about the letters he’d written the very moment he could once he’d decided on a week, tucked away in Jack’s bunker where they would eventually be found. He wrote one to Rhiannon, explaining pretty much nothing and telling her that he loved her. It was a letter that would make her quite angry, he was certain. He’d also written one to whoever got the job of keeping track of the archives, explaining his system as best he could and giving what he hoped were a few helpful tips. He could imagine Jack finding that one, reading it with a smile on his face.

There was no letter explicitly for Jack. At least, not one like Rhiannon got. Rhiannon would live her life, hopefully happy and to an old age (an old, wrinkly age, he hoped with the glee of a ten year old little brother) and she would remember him. A letter in his own handwriting that he’d touched and written with love would someday give her comfort, whenever she got over being angry.

A letter to Jack was selfish… and extremely hard to resist. Someday Jack would forget him and that hurt. It was kinder for Jack, though, and he tried to keep that in the front of his mind. Head over heart.

Still, he thought of how isolated Jack was. How his immortality made it so hard to really connect with someone. Jack had risked it for him and that touched him more than he could say. He could stand the thought of Jack being with someone else… it was a thought that he’d made peace with before they’d even begun, but he couldn’t stand the thought of Jack floating lonely through time.

He hoped, almost as much as he hoped everything would work out to plan today and he’d be able to open his eyes again in only a few short hours, that what he’d written to Jack and left with the other two letters would someday be a comfort.

_Know that there was someone who knew all your secrets and loved you all the same. You are never truly alone._

What Jack’s reaction to that today would be, Ianto didn’t know. He almost didn’t want to know. Be it indifference or shattered sobs… each hurt equally.

The air around him was bordering frigid. He could easily see his breath. He hadn’t noticed but he’d started shaking ever so slightly. Idly, he regretted not asking for a time frame. With a sigh, he kicked off his shoes and laid down on his side. The floor was like ice against his face, cold stone that almost hurt to touch. He ignored that, just like he ignored the nearly full body shivers that had taken over that slight tremor.

From what he knew of hypothermia, it was when the shivering stopped that he would really be getting somewhere.

The urge to curl up came over him again. His body’s instincts, maybe. The steady red light in the corner reminded him not to but it was a near thing. He could imagine Jack pacing tightly, glancing at the camera and then looking away just as quickly. Gwen would watch, he was certain. Gwen and Owen, with Tosh unwilling to torture herself like that. He was sure that by now Gwen would be in her mission mode, focused and ready for anything. Her emotions often bled out all around her but it was unfair of him to so deride her for it. She tended to focus better when it mattered and Jack had made it clear to Ianto that he wasn’t interested truly. He was suddenly glad that he’d never exploded on her over the week. She’d only been trying to help and it wasn’t her fault that he wanted nothing to do with emotional breakdowns, having already gotten to have that charming little experience.

The low drone of the vent continued, more cold air flowing in, dropping the temperature even lower. Ianto shivered miserably. His eyes stung from the cold and he hoped that the others couldn’t see the tears that were building up. In only moments, he went from trying to repress them to letting them fall freely. There was little point in trying to stop them and instead of making him feel weaker and more miserable, he sort of felt comforted.

He watched his own breath, not counting them, but simply watching the tendrils of steam rise up and vanish. It was strangely pretty in a way that he’d never really bothered to notice.

Everything narrowed down into each breath, each swirl of his exhales, the continuous noise of air and the lovely sting of his freezing tears.

When his eyes grew heavy, Ianto let them slide shut.

 

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

 

They all watched the screen. Jack hadn’t really expected that, he’d assumed that Owen would monitor Ianto’s vitals, Gwen would putter around triple checking their setup and Tosh would monitor the Rift to keep her eyes on any screen that didn’t include a dying coworker. He wasn’t sure why they watched and he didn’t care. They certainly didn’t have to.

_He_ did but that wasn’t something they needed to follow suit for.

He had expected it to seem like it was taking forever. That with each second that he wasn’t bursting into the room to save Ianto, time would move slower and slower, taunting him with Ianto’s pain. That wasn’t the case at all.

Even an immortal with as much time on his hands as Jack should have remembered how quickly things could change in even the blink of an eye. Ianto stood for a few moments before sitting, arranging himself on the floor neatly. Owen nodded to Tosh and she hit the temperature controls to start the process up. On the screen, Ianto didn’t really react to the temperature beginning to drop but Jack felt his stomach clench at the sound of the vents beginning to pump out the cold air.

Masochistically, Jack wondered what Ianto was thinking about. His mind seemed to want to torture him with Ianto’s fear and his regret for having chosen a Torchwood life with Jack but that wasn’t giving enough credit to the Ianto Jones that he loved. Ianto might be frightened but he wasn’t cowardly and Jack knew he was resolute in his commitment to saving people, even at the cost of his own death. He reminded himself of what Ianto had said down in his bunker, forcibly hearing the words repeat in his head. Ianto didn’t regret a thing.

Jack immediately noticed when the room was cold enough that Ianto’s breath could be seen. He felt a chill spread over his own skin at the sight of his lover’s discomfort. When Ianto laid down on the floor, obviously freezing, Jack clenched his hands into fists so tightly he could feel the bite of his own fingernails into his skin.

“Respiration is slowing,” Owen reported quietly.

Jack kept watching, counting the seconds between Ianto’s breaths.

Tosh gave a strangled gasp, bringing her hand to her mouth in something like horror. “Is he crying?”

Owen immediately answered her, a hand on Jack’s shoulder as though he’d need to be restrained. “The cold is going to sting his eyes. Don’t be alarmed if ice crystals start to form anywhere where there’s been moisture. So, under his nose or around his eyes.”

Tosh sank into a nearby chair but not so far away that she couldn’t keep watching the screen. In the back of Jack’s mind he realized he should have been saying something to comfort the team but the words wouldn’t come.

All too soon, Ianto’s eyes closed.

“A little longer yet.” Owen said.

Time seemed to slow, to make up for how quickly it had been moving before. Ianto’s breathing had visibly slowed and Jack couldn’t even make out that he was breathing at all. The sight of Ianto half-curled up on the floor, alone and cold with visible tear tracks down his face made Jack long for his own death.

He couldn’t wait to bring that damned alien with him. He hoped that he could feel its death during his own.

Behind him, Gwen’s faint voice questioned Owen, “Now?”

Owen sighed, glancing between Ianto’s image and the read-outs that Jack didn’t understand. There was no sound to them and he was grateful. He couldn’t imagine hearing that dreaded flat-line noise.

“Few more minutes.”

Gwen breathed deeply, as though she was trying not to cry. “Is he…?”

Owen didn’t answer, and that was answer enough. Instead, he opened a drawer and took out a small bottle. “Two should do it, dose is high enough.”

Jack grabbed the bottle sightlessly, opened it and shook out five pills. “No mistakes.”

“Go through the opposite door and you’ll be in an airtight chamber. Once you close the door, it won’t have anywhere to go. No second hop to the next victim.” Owen explained, capping the bottle and putting it out of sight.

Jack didn’t need a run down, he’d heard the plan enough already. He nodded though, because it would probably make the others feel better.

Another moment passed, tense and quiet while they stared at Ianto’s body.

“Go now,” Owen said.

Jack stood, pills tightly in his hand. “Get to him as soon as you can, as soon as it’s safe.”

“We’ve got enough time to watch it die to be certain before we have to go to him.” Owen explained, glancing again at Ianto’s vitals, nonexistent as they were.

Jack gently squeezed Tosh’s shoulder and gave a tight smile to Gwen before approaching the hall that would lead him to Ianto.

 

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

 

It was only the knowledge of the job that still had to be done and the trust he had in Owen’s skills as a doctor that kept Jack from collapsing next to Ianto and trying to revive him. He longed to take his coat off and drape it over Ianto’s frozen form, to give him the warmth that he was so obviously lacking. His skin was a terrible blue, his lips almost black they were so bloodless. There were the promised ice crystals forming where Owen said they would and the sight of the tear tracks almost undid him.

“Oh, Ianto…” Jack said, giving in a little and kneeling next to his lover. It wasn’t required that Jack touch him, Owen said, just to spend a few minutes with him to be sure that the hop had taken place. The alien had no choice but to do it, even if Jack couldn’t feel it. He trailed his hand through Ianto’s hair and shuddered, not with his own discomfort at the temperature, but how cold and dead Ianto looked ( _was…)._

It was only the knowledge that Ianto didn’t have to stay that way, _wouldn’t_ stay that way, got Jack moving again. There was still a job to do, still an alien to kill and still others to protect. There was also a very strict timetable, and he’d already spent the few precious moments allotted to this stage.

He stood again and purposefully didn’t look back at Ianto or linger to look at him. He entered the secure room adjacent to the frigid room he was glad to be leaving.

He hoped that damned alien was feeding off his emotions, was _feeling_ them. It could have all the despair and pain so long as it got a huge taste of Jack’s anger and vengeance.

Jack closed the door behind him and listened to the click and hiss of the lockdown system. The pills were still clenched tightly in his left hand, ready and waiting to do their job well enough to kill both of them. He lifted them up to his lips and threw them back dry.

With a grim smile, he felt the effects of the ridiculously concentrated dose begin. “I warned you.” He said, hoping the thing inside him was listening, had realized what was happening.

When he collapsed, he was still smiling that parody of a smile.

 


	8. Interlude: Ianto

In Ianto’s mind’s eye, he could still see his breaths. White swirls of air, curling around the blackness. He’d never truly appreciated how such a simple thing could be so beautiful.

When the blackness jolted around him and disrupted the swirl of his own breathing, he was almost sad to see it go. He felt like floating, finally warm and out of the terrible, biting cold.

Most importantly, he was slow to realize, was that prevailing sense of wrongness was gone. It had drifted away, leaving him to himself. He hadn’t even noticed that it had a feeling, only what it was _making_ him feel, but he was glad to be alone again. Glad to be only himself.

He could have stayed like that forever, quiet and warm and not wrong, but the jolt was back again. It hurt, it hurt more than it had before. Quickly, it came again, a huge throb through his whole body.

The warmth was gone, now there were only extremes. His skin felt like it was on fire. His fingers were burning and prickling and he could barely feel anything else over the agony of it. His skin had never burned like that before but still his confused mind translated the sensations to _cold, so cold._

With a gasp that shouldn’t have been as agonizing as it was, Ianto snapped his eyes open. The brightness stung, more painful than anything else for one searing second. He couldn’t see anything truly, just intense light and dark shapes moving around above him. Ianto wanted to whimper, curl up and away from them, but he wasn’t to do that and he couldn’t remember why.

_Ianto? Ianto!_

_His eyes are open, Owen, does he see us?_

_Owen?_

_Ianto, stay with me, mate._

_Owen, Jack is shaking. His skin is glistening. I think it worked._

Distantly, Ianto heard Jack’s name. Jack was important, he should try harder for Jack. Even as his eyes shut, desperate to lessen the searing pain of the too-bright lights, his mind struggled with the need to connect the words to the memories, to connect his memories with the present. Just as the need to focus on Jack came into his thoughts, it flittered back out. All his trying had done was give him a fresh wave of pain. His mind ached with a throbbing intensity he could feel against his skull. His lungs felt raw and constricted, like there was a vise around them. He could barely feel his toes and even his legs, but still they burned.

_Can we…_

_No, stay away from him. We have to be sure._

_But…_

_Ianto? Bloody hell, Ianto, don’t do this._

_Oh God…_

The burn of his skin and the light boring into his skull even with his eyes shut was too much. Before he could even consciously decide it, his mind shut down again, ready to embrace the warm, floating darkness where there was no more pain.


	9. A Nightmare Complete

When Jack revived with a desperate gasp of air, he was already in the morgue on the table. He was, he was always pleased to note, already naked.

It always took his mind a few seconds to catch up to the events of his latest death, but the minute he did, he was up. “What happened? Where’s Ianto?” He barked.

Owen was there and waiting. He merely stepped to the side to let Jack see Ianto, laying on a makeshift bed and covered in blankets and wires. Jack made to leap off the table and go to him but Owen was ready for that too. He threw Jack some clothes, “He’s as well as he’s going to be for now. We’ll know more when he wakes up. You got covered in dead alien goo and I only cleaned you up as far as I was willing to go. Shower first.”

“I want to sit with him,” Jack said, his voice hard. He wondered when ‘dead alien goo’ became so commonplace that his first instinct wasn’t to shower but he figured it was par for the course of his long and bizarre life.

Owen shook his head, “No contaminating my patient.”

Instead of fighting that, Jack merely stared at Ianto. This time, the machines he was hooked up to had sound and though he didn’t know much about what the readings meant or even what they were measuring, even he could understand the steady beating noise meant that Ianto was alive. Even with his confidence in Owen, he would have been lying if he said that he hadn’t had his doubts, his fears.

Beside him, Owen sighed and softened his voice to a tone that hardly ever made an appearance, “He’s stable. No issues during the um, reviving process. His temperature is elevated and he’s probably on his way for some nasty cold or another, but we’re out of hypothermia territory. I’ve got him on oxygen because he was having some difficulty breathing but I don’t think that’s going to be a huge issue for long. There could be some brain or nerve damage like I warned you, but honestly, I think he’s going to be fine in under two weeks.” He explained, giving Jack what he so wanted. He gave Jack a long moment to watch the steady if shallow rise and fall of Ianto’s chest before he spoke again, “Now, would you please shower?”

 

**-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

Jack did shower, quickly but efficiently to get a strangely pearlescent alien goo out from what seemed like every possible nook and cranny of his body. He walked back out to the front, he listened to their reports of his death, convulsions and alien matter sweating. He listened to Owen’s medical report on Ianto and he watched the video of their deaths and resurrections. He reassured them, thanked them with meaning. He gave Tosh and Gwen the next couple days off, barring the apocalypse. He pushed Owen off to a bed with the sincere promise of waking him if anything changed with Ianto.

And then he sat, quiet and still, next to his lover’s bed.

He could barely believe that this entire thing had happened in less than a week. As one of Earth’s few defenses against alien threats, they were practically swimming in the weird, crazy and dangerous, but this had been something that Jack had never really encountered. Suicide was already such a painful issue for most and he’d had more than his fair share of thoughts about it. Ianto had too, he knew, after Lisa’s death. He remembered in the earlier days of _after her_ and the beginning of their relationship that it had been a fear in the back of his mind. Would Ianto give up? Would Ianto be unable to go on without Lisa, who he’d tried so hard to save? Ianto had proved stronger than that, and Jack had been proud.

Over the last week he’d been trying to ignore those days and those old worries as much as possible. It was _not_ Ianto that had wanted to die. Still, it had been beyond difficult to just sit there and watch Ianto essentially kill himself and do nothing to convince him not to go through with it.

Luckily for Ianto and any future Torchwood employees, Jack wouldn’t even bother procrastinating his paperwork and write-ups for this particular case. They would be prepared, just in case another Sui Caedere popped up. Jack was beyond tempted and halfway into decided for putting in a note that explicitly instructed future Torchwood members to contact him if he was no longer with them and they had one of these bastards on their hands. He definitely wouldn’t mind obliterating another one of them.

Jack hadn’t been keeping track of the time but when he heard Owen shifting he’d glanced over at one on the wall and was surprised to see that hours had gone by since his latest resurrection. With a sigh and a final look over on Ianto, Jack pulled himself up to check their equipment for anything that needed Torchwood’s attention. There didn’t seem to be anything looming that needed to be taken care of, which was damned lucky and certainly to be short lived.

He’d take whatever little reprieve they could get. None of his team were up to any alien fights after the week they’d had.

It was always the ones that tugged too tightly to their emotions as opposed to running their bodies ragged that took longer to bounce back from.

Jack checked on Owen and gave a bare grin at the sight of the doctor sprawled out on a couch, beyond any hope of consciousness. Though he’d been gone from Ianto for less than twenty minutes, Jack was already itching to check in on him too. He headed down the stairs into the sunken in medical bay.

“Its like my skin is on fire and my bones are ice,”

Jack stopped on the stairs, eyes going from the machines to Ianto’s face slowly, almost afraid that his mind was playing tricks on him. “You have a fever,” Jack informed a little dumbly.

“I rather counted on that, Sir.” Ianto answered, eyes tired but teasing in such a beautiful way Jack couldn’t help but smile back. His voice was rough and nearly a whisper but his words were clear and not at all slurred.

“You should have called for me.” Jack said, continuing his way down the stairs from where he’d stopped in surprise. Owen had cautioned him that it could be hours or days before Ianto woke and he’d said it with the careful phrasing of a doctor who wanted to give hope but not get everyone’s hopes up all at the same time. The implication of brain damage from the freezing, de-freezing or lack of oxygen to Ianto’s brain was a constant threat.

Ianto carefully shifted on the bed, seemingly to mentally take a physical stock of his own condition. He moved carefully and a little weakly, but he moved all the same. Every second and it looked like Ianto might come out of this week physically unscathed. “I needed a moment to… process.”

“You were confused?” Jack asked sharply. That had definitely been on Owen’s ‘Watch For’ list. Before Ianto even got a chance to answer, Jack had started moving back towards the stairs.

“No, no,” Ianto answered, holding out a hand for Jack. He only managed to raise it a few inches above where it had been resting but the gesture was impossible to ignore anyway. The other man clasped it and let himself be ‘pulled’ back to the chair that he’d vacated previously. “No, Jack, just… pleasantly surprised.”

Jack smiled as he sank into the chair. “What, you doubted us?”

“I didn’t doubt you or Owen but maybe I doubted modern medicine and my own luck.” Ianto said with a gentle smile, obviously sensing that Jack didn’t much like his doubts… probably because they were the same as what Jack had been dealing with right along with him.

They’d had enough maudlin though, especially by then, so Jack brushed the topic aside. “You’re feeling all right?”

“I’m cold, obviously. Though that little number on the monitor says I’m… _quite_ the opposite.” Ianto said, indicating to the monitors that clearly proclaimed his fever. “I’m resigned to a really awful cold.”

“I think it’s a bit more than a cold, love.” Jack answered, squeezing the hand still held in his. “You should probably work on resigning yourself to a whole battery of tests from Owen, too.”

“I had rather expected that. He’s… _thorough_.” Ianto answered. The wryly implied insult in his voice, so typical of how he normally spoke of Owen, made Jack burst out in ecstatic laughter. That was definitely his tea-boy.

Ianto shifted on the bed, obviously dealing with some aches and pains. Jack’s laughter trailed off but not before apparently waking Owen. They could both hear his movements in the other room but they appeared to be in the coffee maker’s direction as opposed to theirs.

Ianto watched him laugh, something fond in his expression. “I think most of all though, I feel lighter, like… I can trust myself again. It feels better than I could ever explain.”

Jack leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Ianto’s feverish one. “You could always trust yourself, Yan, it was your will to live the whole time.”

Ianto closed his eyes, “Nothing was worse than waking up on that building beam. I can remember now how my thoughts kept flickering, getting replaced when anything that could keep me from moving how it wanted came up.” Ianto looked tortured for a second. “I can’t think of anything worse. Even losing Lisa… those were my actions, my emotions. Even if I couldn’t trust anything else, I could trust them.”

Jack kissed Ianto gently and pulled back to look the younger man in the eyes. “You don’t need to worry about that anymore. The alien died, we won. Even if we didn’t, it’s out of you. That’s the important part.”

“I didn’t much like the idea of it being in you either.” Ianto admitted, “But I didn’t see any other way that you’d let me go through with.”

“Yes, well, you had that right.” Jack said, running his hand down Ianto’s blanket covered leg. “It worked out just fine, didn’t it?”

“You died and I essentially died.” Ianto reminded, voice droll. “Not our most impressive win.”

Jack shook his head, “You’re here and I’m here. No aliens, no brain damage or some other horrible defrost consequence. That’s a pretty damn big win in my book.”

“My body feels as though enough ice to fill the Hub was just dumped over my head.” Ianto said, shifting with a grimace. Owen’s footsteps got closer to them.

“But it’s just the expected illness symptoms, right? Otherwise, you’re feeling okay?” Jack asked, serious but not wanting to be. He would feel better when Owen looked Ianto over again now that the doctor had the consciousness that he’d said they would need to further assess any long-term problems, although Jack was pretty sure Ianto was in the clear. With that and Owen’s impending presence in mind, he raised his voice and gave Ianto a leer, “All your bits saved from frostbite and ready to go?”

_“Bloody hell, Harkness!”_

Ianto, usually too calm and collected to give into amusement over Jack baiting Owen, took one look at his immortal lover and collapsed into helpless, breathy giggles. Jack quickly followed suit. Owen did not.

Jack leaned forward and caught Ianto in another kiss, making damned sure to slip him the tongue right when he was sure Owen was in sight. They kept kissing while Owen swore.

They were definitely all right.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments & Feedback Are LOVE


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